Renewable generation – tariff mechanism for enabling DSM and DR at consumer level

Globally there is an increasing concern for energy conservation and generation of clean energy through renewable sources which are abundantly available as against fossil fuel sources which are depleting fast. In India also there is a realisation that for energy security and sustainability there is need to efficiently harness the renewable potential.

Present share of renewable in India is around 10% (20 GW) and National Action Plan for Climate Change of Government of India aims for 15 per cent of the national generation to be based on renewable sources by 2020. Initiatives of GOI like JNNSM (Jawahar Lal Nehru National Solar Mission) which envisages deployment of 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022 are directed to facilitate above and around 10000 MW of this is planned in 12th five year plan period ending in March 2017. Capacity addition thru grid connected wind and small hydro generation is envisaged to be around 15000 MW and 2100 MW respectively in 12th plan. Besides this, CERC has envisaged an RPO (Renewable Purchase Obligation) mandate for utilities of 10% by 2015 and thereafter increasing @ 1% per year till 2020. These targets are very much in reach considering that officially estimated wind potential in India is around 49 GW, some studies have quoted figures which are way above this estimation. Solar Potential in India is abundant and 5,000 trillion kWh per year energy is incident over India's land area with most parts receiving 4–7 kWh per sq. m per day.

However, compared to Conventional generating resources which are relatively stable, controllable and schedulable the renewable energy sources are intermittent and variable in nature and hence pose challenges to system operators and designers. Renewable Energy sources are influenced by factors such as weather and geographic location that lead to challenges in forecasting their generation and system management. Besides there may also be some errors in load forecast that may alleviate or aggravate the net impact on system operations. Large deployments of solar generation capacity is also saddled by the requirement of expansiveness of deployment of panels over large land areas for generation of a decent quantum of solar energy but which is still a fraction of what we get from conventional generation methods. Hence there is need to look for roof top deployment of solar PV to enable its proliferation. To compensate for the aberrations associated with their efficient integration in the power system efforts are required not only at design and technology level but also at the regulatory level for development of revenue generation and compensation mechanism and also devising innovative execution models for streamlining their integration. Demand Side Management and Demand Response coupled with proficient integration of Distributed solar PV over roof tops could help to buffer variability in supply right from the LT voltage end.

This paper presents an approach to facilitate integration of Distributed roof top solar PV and DSM and DR through an aggregator so as to provide utility with a substantial quantum of controllable generation rather than having to deal with numerous controllable loads/generation of miniscule capacity and what are the communication needs to facilitate such integration. A dynamic tariff mechanism for DR alongwith feed in tariff for solar DER will incentivise and provide a revenue generating option for the consumers and help utilities by way of easing out the load on the system and peak period purchase cost savings.