Power consumers, industrialists and solar panel manufacturers on Tuesday raised serious concerns over the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited’s (MSEDCL) proposed changes to Time-of-Day (ToD) slots saying that it would severely impact solar power usage. During the public hearing held at District Planning Committee Hall in Civil Lines in the city, Saket Suri, Director of the All India Renewable Energy Association (AIREA), urged the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) to reconsider the proposed changes. “The proposed revisions in the Time of Day (ToD) pattern will lead to increased electricity bills for consumers. The new ToD pattern will reduce the benefit of solar power generation for the consumers from 20 hours to 8 hours. “The new tariffs of MSEDCL would restrict the solar power generated by consumers with installed solar panels to only eight hours. The consumers would only be able to use the power generated from solar between the 9am to 5pm slab under the TOD tariffs.

 

This will eventually lead to an increase in their power bills. However, the MSEDCL claimed that it will bring down the power charges. These are very contradictory statements,” he said. Girdhari Mantri, one of the petitioners and office-bearers of various associations, said residential as well as industrial and commercial category consumers who had already installed solar panels will not be able to get benefits of the solar panel installations. In addition to this, power consumers who are planning to install rooftop solar panels will also shy away from it if the new changes in TOD are implemented,” he said. Energy expert R B Goenka also raised the similar point. Goenka said the proposal will have a very adverse impact on consumers having rooftop solar generation systems.

 

“As per the roof top solar generation regulations, the banked power in net metering system can be utilised during the same slot of exported energy or in the non peak hours. Most of the consumers are utilizing the banked energy during the night peak hours. But as per the MSEDCL’s proposal the night hours are proposed as peak hours and the power exported during the day time can not be utilised in the peak hours but can be utilized only during solar generation hours when the consumer having roof top solar generator system do not need the banked power,” he pointed out. Further, the solar generator will have to sell the unused banked power to MSEDCL at a generic tariff rate of Rs 3 per unit at the end financial year. Apart from these petitioners, there were many other consumers cutting across the categories who also opposed the changes in TOD.