India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has urged the country’s federal power regulator to delay the implementation of new rules for clean energy generators to stick to their commitments to supply electricity to the grid.
The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) earlier this year proposed to introduce stricter rules for wind and solar power generators to ensure a minimum gap between their estimates of power delivered to the grid and the actual electricity they send.
The deviation has been an issue in India’s grids as the share of renewable energy, especially solar power, is rising in the electricity mix.
However, the uncertainty in predicting power generation from renewable energy sources threatens to lead to grid imbalances.
CERC in September proposed stricter rules on generators’ planning and forecasting to take effect from April 2026, and gradually reduce the permissible gap between forecasts and actual supply.
But India’s renewable energy ministry said a recent letter to the CERC, reviewed by Reuters, that errors in forecasts cannot be avoided as they are mostly the result of the unpredictable nature of solar and wind power generation. Therefore, introducing penalties for deviations would be “imprudent”, the ministry said in the letter.
It said the deviation charges could “have a catastrophic effect” on the currently booming clean energy industry.
India’s renewables developers have also warned that CERC’s proposed stricter rules would harm investment in renewable energy.
India added a record 22 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity in the first half of 2025, up by 57% from a year earlier, according to Rystad Energy data. Solar led the newly-added capacity with 18.4 GW installations, followed by 3.5 GW of wind, and 250 megawatts (MW) of bioenergy generated from plant and animal waste.
In July, India boasted achieving five years ahead of schedule its target to have 50% of its installed electricity capacity coming from non-fossil fuel sources.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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