#cerc

Se desenează pe nisip un cerc

după care se taie în două,

cu același băț de alun se taie în două.

După aceea se cade în genunchi,

După aceea se cade pe brânci.

După aceea se izbește cu fruntea nisipul

și i se cere iertare.

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has granted a transmission licence to TP Gopalpur Transmission Limited.

The order was issued on May 21, 2026.

The matter is Petition No. 125/TL/2026.

The licence has been granted under Sections 14, 15 and 79(1)(e) of the Electricity Act, 2003.

The project will be implemented under the inter-state transmission system framework.

Project scope

The project includes a new 765/400 kV gas-insulated substation.

The transformation capacity will be 2x1500 MVA.

The scope also includes 765 kV 330 MVAr bus reactors.

Associated 765 kV and 400 kV bays are also part of the scheme.

The project is targeted for completion by December 31, 2027.

Four-state relevance

The project has relevance across Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.

State transmission utilities from these four states were among the respondents.

CTUIL and REC Power Development and Consultancy Limited were also respondents.

This shows the multi-state coordination required for the project.

Why this matters

A 765/400 kV substation of this size is a major grid node.

It can strengthen inter-state power transfer capability.

It can also support evacuation of generation from eastern India.

The additional high-voltage infrastructure will help reduce congestion and improve grid reliability.

GIS advantage

The project uses gas-insulated substation technology.

GIS is useful where land is limited or where compact high-voltage infrastructure is needed.

It also supports better reliability in difficult environmental conditions.

This makes it suitable for strategic transmission nodes.

Transformation capacity

The 2x1500 MVA configuration provides 3,000 MVA of transformation capacity.

This allows large volumes of power to move between 765 kV and 400 kV networks.

Such capacity is important as regional demand rises.

It also supports large-scale renewable and conventional generation evacuation.

Private transmission role

TP Gopalpur Transmission Limited is the licensed transmission developer.

The company was earlier known as ERES-XXXIX Power Transmission Limited.

The project reflects continued private participation in India’s ISTS buildout.

Tariff-based competitive bidding has become a major route for such transmission projects.

Beneficiary impact

For Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, the project can improve transfer capability and supply reliability.

For generators, it provides stronger evacuation infrastructure.

For DISCOMs, better inter-state transmission can support more reliable procurement.

For consumers, it can reduce the risk of grid bottlenecks affecting supply.

Execution challenge

The key deadline is December 31, 2027.

The project must manage equipment procurement, construction, bay integration and commissioning.

High-voltage GIS equipment and transformers are long-lead items.

Timely execution will therefore be critical.

Strategic message

CERC’s licence to TP Gopalpur Transmission Limited adds another major 765 kV node to India’s inter-state grid.

The 765/400 kV, 2x1500 MVA GIS substation will support power transfer across eastern India.

The project strengthens grid reliability, evacuation capacity and inter-state transmission resilience.

The key watchpoints are equipment ordering, construction progress, coordination with state utilities, and commissioning by December 31, 2027.

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has upgraded Greenko Energies Private Limited’s inter-state electricity trading licence.

The licence has been upgraded from Category III to Category I.

The order was issued on May 14, 2026.

It was passed in Petition No. 136/TD/2026.

With this upgrade, Greenko Energies can now trade up to 7,000 MU of electricity annually.

Licence background

Greenko’s trading licence has a long regulatory history.

The original licence was granted on January 22, 2008.

At that time, the company was known as Sri Balaji Biomass Power Private Limited.

The licence later moved through regulatory category changes under CERC’s trading licence regulations.

It was upgraded to Category III in 2021.

The latest order takes it to the highest trading category.

Category I significance

Category I is the top category under CERC’s trading licence framework.

It allows trading of 7,000 MU to 10,000 MU of electricity per year.

This gives Greenko a much larger market participation capacity.

It also allows the company to scale trading activities across the inter-state electricity market.

Greenko’s rationale

Greenko sought the upgrade because it expects higher power trading volumes.

The company cited growth in power markets.

It also referred to competitive dynamics on power exchanges.

It expects larger trading opportunities as renewable energy, storage, and market-based procurement expand.

The upgrade gives Greenko the regulatory headroom to participate at scale.

Net worth position

CERC examined Greenko’s audited balance sheet as of January 31, 2026.

The company’s net worth stood at Rs. 4,81,805.41 lakh.

This is around Rs. 4,818 crore.

The minimum net worth required for a Category I trading licence is Rs. 50 crore.

Greenko’s net worth was therefore far above the regulatory threshold.

Liquidity ratio relaxation

CERC noted that Greenko’s current ratio and liquidity ratio were below the required 1:1 level.

The current ratio stood at 0.04.

The liquidity ratio stood at 0.03.

However, the Commission relaxed these requirements under Regulation 23 of the 2020 Trading Licence Regulations.

It relied on Greenko’s very strong net worth position and past precedents.

Additional net worth condition

Greenko will need to maintain additional net worth.

This will be equal to 100% of the net worth stipulated for Category I licensees.

The requirement will be endorsed on the existing trading licence document.

This ensures that the company continues to maintain adequate financial strength while operating at a higher trading scale.

Power market impact

The order is important for India’s green power trading ecosystem.

Greenko is a major renewable energy and storage platform.

It has large wind, solar, and pumped storage interests.

With Category I trading authority, it can play a bigger role in inter-state renewable power transactions.

Renewable integration

As renewable energy penetration rises, trading companies can help balance surplus and deficit states.

Greenko’s larger trading licence can support cross-state renewable dispatch.

It can also help optimise market-based sale of renewable and storage-backed power.

This is especially relevant as India moves toward round-the-clock renewable energy and firm dispatchable renewable energy contracts.

Strategic message

CERC’s upgrade of Greenko Energies to Category I trading status is a significant regulatory development.

It gives Greenko authority to trade up to 7,000 MU annually.

The decision also reflects growing confidence in renewable-focused trading platforms.

As India’s power market deepens, companies with renewable assets, storage capacity, and trading licences will become increasingly important in grid balancing and clean power procurement.

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has granted a transmission licence to POWERGRID Bellary Davanagere Transmission Limited.

The order was issued in Petition No. 133/TL/2026.

The date of the order was May 9, 2026.

POWERGRID Bellary Davanagere Transmission Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.

The licence has been issued under Sections 14 and 15 of the Electricity Act, 2003.

Project coverage

The transmission system will serve DISCOMs across the Southern Region.

The beneficiary footprint includes Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.

The project will reinforce inter-state transmission capacity across South India.

This is important because the Southern Region has rising demand, growing renewable injection, and continuing import dependence during certain time blocks.

Tariff adoption

CERC also issued a companion order in Petition No. 134/AT/2026 on May 8, 2026.

Through this order, the Commission adopted the transmission charges for the project under Section 63 of the Electricity Act.

This means the tariff was discovered through tariff-based competitive bidding.

The Section 63 route gives the project a competitively discovered tariff framework instead of cost-plus determination.

Beneficiary utilities

The licence and tariff adoption bind 15 beneficiary utilities across 7 southern states.

This makes the project one of the broader recent beneficiary-linked transmission approvals in the region.

The wide beneficiary base shows the importance of the asset for regional grid reliability and power flows.

It also ensures that project costs are shared across multiple utilities that benefit from the network.

POWERGRID execution comfort

The ownership structure provides execution comfort.

POWERGRID is India’s central transmission utility and one of the country’s most experienced transmission developers.

Its subsidiary structure gives lenders, counterparties, and beneficiary utilities confidence in execution quality.

For a high-voltage regional transmission project, this is a significant advantage.

Southern Region importance

The Southern Region has a complex power flow profile.

Karnataka has significant renewable energy potential.

Tamil Nadu and Kerala have large demand centres and seasonal supply pressures.

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana also require strong inter-state balancing capacity.

The Bellary-Davanagere system can strengthen regional transfer capability and support renewable evacuation from interior Karnataka.

Renewable evacuation

The project will help improve evacuation headroom for renewable developers.

Interior Karnataka has large solar and wind development potential.

Without adequate transmission capacity, renewable generation can face curtailment or delayed commissioning.

The project therefore supports both grid reliability and clean energy integration.

Commercial framework

The adoption of transmission charges under Section 63 gives commercial clarity.

DISCOMs can include the charges in their power procurement cost stack.

POWERGRID gains visibility on long-duration regulated cash flows.

EPC and equipment suppliers also gain a clear project pipeline for transformers, reactors, conductors, substation packages, and related systems.

Strategic message

The CERC orders move the POWERGRID Bellary Davanagere project from licensing to execution.

The project reinforces the Southern Region grid at a time when renewable energy, demand growth, and inter-state power flows are all increasing.

It also shows that tariff-based competitive bidding remains a central route for India’s transmission expansion.

Regulators are approving large transmission infrastructure investments based on assumptions of high grid utilization, even as portions of the generation fleet operate at relatively low capacity factors. This mismatch raises questions about how transmission planning aligns with real-world generation output.

Transmission financing and availability-based tariffs

Transmission projects in India are typically financed under frameworks that assume very high operational availability—often around 98% availability for grid infrastructure.

Once a transmission line is built and declared available, the developer can recover capital costs through regulated tariffs, regardless of the volume of electricity flowing through the line.

This structure ensures financial stability for infrastructure investment but also means that revenue recovery is linked primarily to asset availability rather than utilization.

Financial approvals and utilization data

Financial and operational reports from late February and early March 2026 highlight the contrast between infrastructure investment and generation utilization.

An ICRA rating rationale for Rajasthan IV A Power Transmission Limited (RIVA) outlines a ₹1,200 crore capital structure for a 494 km, 400-kV transmission corridor, modeled around high availability assumptions.

Meanwhile, the Central Electricity Authority’s Capacity Utilization Report (Sub-Report 16) indicates that while India’s installed generation capacity stands at 248,541.63 MW, certain segments of the generation fleet report Plant Load Factors (PLFs) as low as 15.26%.

Planning for future demand

Transmission planners generally design networks with surplus capacity to accommodate future generation additions, renewable integration, and demand growth.

Oversizing transmission corridors can help prevent bottlenecks and support grid flexibility as generation patterns evolve.

Policy consideration

However, aligning transmission infrastructure investments with realistic generation utilization forecasts remains a key policy challenge.

As the power system expands and diversifies, regulators and planners continue to evaluate how infrastructure financing models interact with generation fleet performance and grid utilization.

Private transmission developers are locking in multi-decade, billion-rupee debt structures based on the assumption of seamless grid integration, while the regulatory architecture governing that physical access is paralyzed by systemic litigation.

Transmission financing and availability-based tariffs

Large-scale transmission infrastructure is financed on the promise of a 35-year availability-based tariff, meaning the developer is guaranteed revenue as long as the physical line is built and ready for use.

However, for the grid to actually utilize that line, the dependent power generators must legally secure General Network Access (GNA) and Connectivity approvals.

When these approvals are bottlenecked by multi-party regulatory disputes, developers still lock in their massive capital debt structures, shifting the financial risk of an idle asset onto retail consumers who must pay the tariff regardless of whether electricity flows.

Regulatory dockets reveal structural misalignment

Regulatory and financial records from March 2026 illustrate the disconnect.

A rating rationale for Rajasthan IV A Power Transmission Limited (RIVA) describes the financial closure of a Rs. 1,200 crore capital structure, based on a 35-year tariff adoption for a new 400-kV transmission network.

At the same time, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) Advance Hearing Schedule shows the regulatory docket crowded with disputes under Regulations 41 and 42 governing Connectivity and General Network Access (GNA).

These cases involve multiple generators and state utilities locked in prolonged litigation over grid access rights.

Protected developer revenue versus stranded assets

Transmission developers argue that their financial model is legally sound because availability-based tariffs protect them from external disputes.

If the developer builds the transmission line on time and maintains availability, they remain contractually entitled to tariff recovery regardless of downstream connectivity issues.

However, this legal structure creates systemic risk for the public. If generators cannot legally connect due to GNA disputes, the infrastructure may remain idle while consumers still finance decades of transmission debt through regulated tariffs.

Regulatory implication

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) may need to align tariff adoption with the resolution of connectivity approvals.

Without such safeguards, transmission infrastructure financing can become disconnected from actual grid utilization, leaving consumers responsible for servicing long-term infrastructure debt tied to underutilized transmission corridors.

Tata Power’s winning bid undercut the regulator’s normative benchmark by a notable margin, signalling continued investor appetite for regulated transmission assets despite tightening return expectations.

India’s power transmission sector has delivered another clear signal that price discipline — not regulatory generosity — is now shaping the economics of interstate grid expansion.

In a recent order, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) adopted a sharply competitive annual transmission charge for a major eastern corridor project linked to the Eastern Region Expansion Scheme-XXXIV. The tariff, discovered through tariff-based competitive bidding, came in materially below the Commission’s own normative cost benchmark — a gap large enough to underline how aggressively developers are now pricing long-term regulated assets.

The winning bid was secured by Tata Power, which edged out other heavyweight infrastructure players in an extended e-reverse auction process. The final discovered charge undercuts the modelled levelised tariff used as a regulatory reference point, indicating that bidders are willing to accept tighter equity returns in exchange for the stability of contracted, availability-based revenue streams.

Why this order matters

This is not just another tariff adoption. It forms part of a visible structural shift in India’s transmission build-out.

CERC’s role in such cases is limited to verifying whether the competitive bidding process complied with Ministry of Power guidelines. Once procedural compliance is established, the regulator does not reopen capital cost assumptions or revisit project financing structures. The discovered tariff becomes the binding annual transmission charge under the Transmission Service Agreement (TSA) and is recoverable through the national pooling mechanism for inter-state transmission charges.

In this case, the Commission explicitly noted that the quoted tariff was lower than the levelised tariff derived from CERC’s own normative cost model. That gap effectively transfers efficiency gains — or risk appetite — from the developer to designated inter-state transmission system customers, including distribution companies.

What this signals about the market

The deeper story is about investor behaviour.

Transmission projects continue to offer long concession periods, predictable cash flows, and regulatory backing on payment security. In a capital market environment where infrastructure investors are chasing yield stability, these assets remain attractive even as nominal returns compress.

However, aggressive bidding also raises quiet questions. Lower discovered tariffs mean developers are locking in thinner margins over decades, increasing dependence on construction discipline, long-term O&M efficiency, and potentially more sophisticated refinancing strategies. The regulator did not comment on margin sustainability — because under Section 63 of the Electricity Act, that is not its mandate once bidding norms are satisfied.

Impact on stakeholders

For distribution companies, the immediate impact is modest but directionally positive. Each competitively discovered, sub-normative tariff incrementally reduces the pooled transmission cost burden that ultimately feeds into retail supply costs.

For consumers, the effect is indirect and diluted across the national pool. But over time, repeated outcomes of this nature can help moderate network cost growth.

For generation developers and bulk power users in the eastern region, the project’s strategic value outweighs the tariff level. The corridor strengthens evacuation capacity, improves grid resilience, and supports future generation additions and regional power flow flexibility.

Regulatory message

CERC’s order reinforces a clear regulatory stance: competitive discovery, once validated, will not be second-guessed through cost-plus scrutiny. Process integrity is the gatekeeper; price is left to the market.

This approach is steadily shifting the centre of gravity in transmission development — away from regulatory negotiation and toward financial strategy and execution efficiency. Winning bids are increasingly shaped not by what regulators may allow later, but by how efficiently developers believe they can build, finance, and operate assets over the long term.

In short, India’s interstate grid is being expanded not just through steel and substations, but through increasingly compressed financial expectations — locked in at the auction table.