In filing with state regular, Andhra discoms say will consider power purchase from SECI

Hyderabad: The SECI deal with the Andhra Pradesh government, which was the centre of a US court indictment of Gautam Adani on alleged bribery charges, is still 'alive' as the Andhra Pradesh power distribution companies have decided to go ahead and procure power.

Despite a focus on the Andhra Pradesh government's next move following the reports of the US court's indictment on November 21, recent filings by state discoms to the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) revealed that they continue to consider the supply of renewable energy from solar farms in Gujarat and Rajasthan by SECI.

The Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) and Tariff Proposal for the Retail Supply Business for FY 2025-26 by Andhra Pradesh discoms showed that SECI informed them that due to delay in completion of transmission elements by Central Transmission Utility of India Limited (CTUIL), 1,000 MW will be supplied from January 15, 2025, onwards instead of October this year, 3,000 MW in 2025-26, and the balance 3,000 MW in 2026-27, indicating that the SECI deal is still 'alive.'

Days after the US court's indictment, highly placed sources in the Andhra Pradesh government said it has in principle decided to cancel the SECI deal and is working on the modalities. As per the terms of the Power Sale Agreement (PSA) signed with SECI in 2021, 3,000 MW of power is to be supplied from October 2024 in the first phase, another 3,000 MW from October 2025, and the balance of 1,000 MW from October 2026.

SECI deal was mentioned by the discoms in the filings submitted to APERC on November 30, in the section related to 'Capacity, availability and power purchase cost for H2 FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26' under the renewable energy category.

“With an intention to supply free agriculture power to the farming community on a sustained basis and to reduce power procurement cost and subsidy burden on the government, the Government of AP and the three AP discoms entered into a PSA with SECI on December 1, 2021, for procurement of 7,000 MW (17000 MU) in three tranches effective from October_2024-3000 MW, October_2025-3000 MW and October_2026-1000 MW. The cost of procurement under this PSA is to be borne by the state government, GoAP is also a party signatory in the PSA. The solar power developers under the subject PSA are setting up the plants in the state of Rajasthan & Gujarat. The levelized tariff for the procurement is Rs 2.49/Unit including trading margin, for 25 year,” said the filings by discoms.

The filing also noted that APERC has approved the procurement and the PSA on April, 12, 2024, and CERC has adopted the tariff discovered through the process of competitive bidding conducted by M/s SECI which is a GoI undertaking.

“GoAP has established a separate company to channelise this solar procurement to the free supply agriculture consumers through a separate entity called AP Rural Agriculture Power Limited (APRAPL) and the same is in the process of obtaining a license and fulfilling the other establishment activities. After full operationalisation of APRAPL\the aforesaid power sale agreement will be transferred from AP discoms to APRAPL for the supply of power to the agricultural consumers,” the filing added.

The discoms also said the power from SECI — Rajasthan will tentatively start scheduling from January 2025 in multiple tranches. An additional per unit cost of Rs 0.158/unit for scheduling power from SECI under the GNARE category was also considered in the ISTS/PGCIL charges. The actual per-unit cost depends upon the actual generation and the category under which the power is scheduled from.