A sigh of relief for 1.64 cr consumers in the state.
Vijayawada: As expected, there were no tariff hikes proposed in the annual revenue requirement for financial year 2019-20 submitted by the APSPDCL and APEPDCL to the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission on Saturday.
Interestingly, energy availability from all sources is 68,584 million of units while energy requirement is less than production at 67,713 MU, making the state energy surplus by 870 MU.
The power distribution companies sought Rs 38,204 crore as ARR, listing Rs 29,241 crore as projected income and revenue deficit of Rs 8,963 crore.
The Average Cost of Supply (CoS) has been increased by 7.8 per cent with Rs 6.34 per unit. The average revenue realisation at the proposed tariffs is Rs 4.86 per unit.
The officials reported energy met through renewable sources was 24.7 per cent as against Renewable Power Purchase Obligation target of 17.5 per cent mandated by the Union power ministry for financial year 2019-20. The wind power increased by 15 per cent compared to last year with 8,866 MU. Solar power increased by 58 per cent with 7,201 MU and 701 MU comes from other sources.
The APSPDCL and APEPDCL did not propose any tariff hike despite 7.8 per cent increase in the average cost of supply leading to increased revenue gap of `1.49 per unit. This will bring a sigh of relief to 1.64 crore consumers in the state.
Further, there was no change in the tariffs of LT (I) domestic, benefitting 1.32 crore consumers, LT (V) Agriculture under which seven hours of free power is offered to 17 lakh consumers, LT (II) commercial category benefitting 13.1 lakh consumers without tariff hike.
Under LT IV (A) Cottage Industries, power is supplied free of cost to dhobi ghats.
Under LT V (C) Rural Horticulture Nurseries gets the free power supply to 4,000 nursery farmers. Under LT II (E) and HT II (E): Electric Vehicles EV’s/Charging stations: The tariff was reduced by Rs 1 per unit from earlier Rs 6.95 per unit to Rs 5.95 per unit.
APEPDCL CMD H.Y. Dora, APEPDCL CGM Y.S.N. Prasad and APSPDCL CGM B. Lalitha submitted the ARR to APERC chairman Justice G. Bhavani Prasad and APERC members P. Raghu and P. Ram Mohan at the APERC office in Hyderabad.
Source: deccanchronicle
