Power minister RK Singh launches Green Energy Open Access Portal

Representative image

Union power minister RK Singh launched the Green Energy Open Access portal on November 11 to increase the purchase of renewable energy in the country.

The portal will allow renewable energy (RE) open access to any consumer with a connected load of 100 kW or above. The move is aimed at allowing even small consumers to get access to renewable energy, which is why the government decided to reduce the eligibility from 1MW of sanctioned load to 100 kW or above, in June this year.

The ministry, in a statement, said that the approval for green energy open access will be granted to a consumer in a time-bound manner within15 days.

Open access allows a consumer to buy electricity from a source of its choice.

“The application for open access can be made on the portal, which can be accessed at https://greenopenaccess.in/ for processing of applications related to green energy open access by the stakeholders including open access participants, traders, power exchanges, national / regional / state load despatch centres, central/state transmission utilities,” read the ministry’s statement.

The provision of the green energy open access was made through a notification on June 6 this year .

In the backdrop of the ongoing COP27 at Egypt, the union power minister said India is contributing only 3.5 percent to the global emission despite having about 17 percent of world population and India is leading the clean energy transition globally and has the fastest growth of RE capacity addition.

Ministry of power has taken a number of initiative in this regard and many more are in  advanced stages. He emphasised the importance of ease of implementation in reform process.

At COP27, India has stressed that developing countries require substantive enhancement in climate finance from the floor of USD 100 billion per year to meet their ambitious goals and rich countries need to lead the mobilisation of resources.

At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries had committed to jointly mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries tackle the effects of climate change. Rich countries, however, have repeatedly failed in delivering this finance.

Alok Kumar, secretary, ministry of power, said India is committed to meeting the NDC targets of 50% installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources and is on the verge of ushering in a mass revolution in the green energy transition.

“The Green Energy Open Access rules support India’s vision of transition to clean energy with participation of all generators, DISCOMs, and other stakeholders. He mentioned about various reforms and actions being taken such as integrated transmission planning for renewables integration, carbon market, streamlining and harmonised captive consumption and banking for renewable energy,” he said.

On August 3, the Union Cabinet approved India’s updated NDC under the Paris Agreement, under which the country has committed to reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% by 2030 from 2005 levels and achieving about 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030. India last submitted its NDC to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015.

Speaking at the Glasgow climate summit last year, PM Narendra Modi announced India’s non-fossil energy capacity will reach 500 GW by 2030, meeting 50% of the country’s energy requirements by then. He said India will reduce its total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030, the carbon intensity of its economy by 45% by 2030, over 2005 levels, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.