The Tamil Nadu Electricity Commission is looking to change the rules in order to ensure just one member can be considered a quorum, rather than the current requirement of two, something that could potentially quicken the decision-making process.
The regulator has issued a draft notice toward easing the rules for what constitutes a quorum-the minimum number of members needed to transact the business of a group.
The move comes at a time when Tamil Nadu is trying to battle its huge power shortfall through, among other things, an ambitious scale-up in solar power. The plan is to add 3 gigawatt of solar power by 2015, but the going hasn't been smooth.
Though over 50 solar developers have signed letters of intent to set up nearly 700 megawatt of capacity, power purchase agreements haven't been signed. And the main reason for the delay is that the regulator has been functioning with just one member.
"For the past one year, nothing has been happening in terms of decision-making, creating uncertainty," said Madhavan Nampoothiri, founder & director of Chennai-based RESolve Energy Consultants. It also comes just a week after Tamil Nadu inducted a second member to the commission. Nampoothiri said the amendment take care of the quorum in case one member retires.
It will also ensure consistency. The change in rules could help the industry. Bikesh Ogra, president of solar Business at Sterling & Wilson, part of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, said he expects the moves to "instill confidence in the solar developers who have been waiting for almost a year to sign power purchase agreements. Expectations are that power purchase agreements could get signed shortly."
The change in rules follows criticism by appeals body Appellate Tribunal for Electricity on vacancies that were not filled up. That came after a report of the Forum of Regulators, which is made up of representatives of all state electricity regulatory commissions, pointed out the lack of quorum in AP, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu.
Justice M Karpaga Vinayagam, chairperson of the appellate tribunal, had noted in his order the need to record "with a great anguish with regard to repeated instances of institutional vacuum being created due to lack of diligence by the respective appointing authorities in filling up the vacancies".
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