New Delhi, July 16 (TIWN) As Reliance Infrastructure-led BSES gears up to relinquish power from old thermal plants, the power distribution company and its consumers in the national capital may well save around Rs 800 crore a year if the Reliance Group company replaces this expensive power with cheaper green power.

Power industry sources said that replacing this expensive power with substantially cheaper green power, which is available at around Rs 2.50 per unit, will help Delhi consumers save around Rs 20,000 crore over a period of 25 years, at the rate of Rs 800 crore per year.  The recent judgement from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commision (CERC) along with efforts from the Ministry of Power has paved the way for BSES discoms to surrender costly power after a plant completes 25 years from the commercial operations date (COD). 

There are a total of seven power stations that are supplying expensive power (above Rs 6 per unit) to Reliance Infrastructure-led BSES. Of these, five stations, including Dadri-I, have completed 25 years from COD. Additionally, two more power stations will complete 25 years by August 2021 and April 2022. These power plants supply around 830 MW power to BSES.  Apart from Dadri-I, Reliance Infrastructure led BSES discoms have initiated the process with the DERC for exiting the remaining power plants in this category, according to people in the know. 

The share of Renewable Energy in BSES' power portfolio is likely to progressively increase over-time. At present, it is around 10 per cent of our long arrangements.  This substantial difference in the prices of power will help in neutralising cost increases by absorbing the impact of inflation and other factors, including prices of coal, gas etc. In fact, these will ease the pressure on future tariff hikes, source said.