The Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) has rejected a plea by industries seeking a review of the revised power tariffs for two categories of high-end industrial electricity consumers.
The commission, in a September 19 order, rejected the petition filed by the Kerala High Tension (HT) and Extra High Tension (EHT) Industrial Electricity Consumers Association seeking a review of the tariffs fixed for the EHT 66kV and EHT 110kV consumers as part of an overall revision in June.
The association had approached the commission saying that anomalies had crept into the commission’s tariff orders, resulting in excessive tariffs for the two categories. Another grievance was that the commission had “blindly reproduced” the tariff hike proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) for the said consumers.
However, the commission declined to accept this argument. It noted that following the June revision, the cost coverage of both the EHT 66kV and EHT 110kV consumers was less than 100% of the average cost of supply (ACoS) and that they were in the subsidised tariff category group.
“The commission through the revised tariff had provided a tariff subsidy of ₹40.51 crore to the EHT 66kV and EHT 110kV industries for promoting industrial growth, system stability, and employment generation. Any attempt to further increase this tariff subsidy to the HT/EHT category can only be at the cost of the ordinary consumers,’‘ it noted.
However, the commission clarified that a ‘‘typographical error’‘ had led to the inclusion of a line that ‘‘the commission does not approve the excessive increase in electricity tariff as proposed by the KSEB”. This has since been corrected, it said.
In June, the commission had raised the per-unit energy charge for EHT 110kV consumers from ₹5.40 to ₹5.90 and the demand charge from ₹330 to ₹390 for the 2022-23 fiscal. The energy charge and demand charge respectively were hiked from ₹5.50 to ₹6 and from ₹340 to ₹400 for EHT 66kV. Both sets of increases were totally in line with the KSEB recommendation, which sparked the protest.
