#deviationsettlement

Transmission deviation charges India during early 2026 expose a critical flaw in deviation accounting under the GNA regime. March RTDA data and WRPC settlement records show that approved access revisions were not reflected in billing systems for months, despite being operationally effective.

Generators received revised GNA instructions from NLDC in October 2025. Dispatch followed those directions to maintain regional frequency. Yet settlement software continued to calculate limits on legacy access values. As a result, scheduled injections were misclassified, and Transmission deviation charges India accumulated continuously across December, January, and February.

This created a closed negative loop. Each settlement period reinforced the previous deviation position, regardless of physical compliance. For merchant industrial plants, the mismatch had immediate cash-flow consequences. Power was supplied, penalties were levied, and revenues were eroded before any corrective revision could be processed.

The magnitude is visible in RTDA annexures, where deviation volumes were priced at Rs 408 per MWh under temporary access logic. Such rates are punitive when applied to tens of thousands of units. Once settled, the charges could not be commercially recovered.EnergylineIndia.com documents how Transmission deviation charges India are shaped by administrative timing, not just grid behaviour. The case highlights weaknesses in power deviation settlement design and flags the need for real-time integration within General Network Access India to prevent systemic financial leakage, Transmission Charges, GNA Framework, Deviation Settlement, Power Finance.

There is a comforting habit in power-market analysis: average the numbers and assume the risk evens out. The revised RTDA ledger of Greenko’s Kurnool pumped storage project dismantles that illusion in one glance.

This is not a story about volatility. It is a story about concentration.

In the revised RTDA, May 2025 alone carries a payable of ₹44.35 lakh. By contrast, August, September, and October together barely cross ₹66,000, with October collapsing to a symbolic ₹991. Read line by line, it feels contradictory. Read structurally, it reveals how deviation settlements actually work.

One month can dominate an entire year

RTDA risk does not distribute itself politely across time. It arrives in bursts. It is spiky, episodic, and capable of compressing an entire year’s financial narrative into a single billing cycle.

In this ledger, May is not just the worst month. It is the only month that matters.

What makes this sequence revealing is not only the size of the May payable, but what follows it. Once the deviation event is captured and settled, the payable does not fade gradually. It collapses.

June and July drop to zero. August shows only a residual charge. By October, the settlement signal is almost gone. The economics do not smooth out. They snap shut.

What RTDA is actually designed to do

This behaviour exposes the real logic of RTDA.

RTDA is not designed to create a steady stream of settlement revenue. It is built to deliver a shock, force behavioural correction, and then retreat. Once the signal is absorbed, the grid does not keep billing. It watches.

The mechanism is punitive in intensity, not in duration.

The hidden risk for asset owners

For generators and storage asset owners, this is where the real risk sits. Exposure under RTDA is not proportional to frequency, but to intensity. One burst of misalignment — especially on the withdrawal side — can outweigh months of compliant operation.

That cost does not get diluted by good behaviour later. It stands alone, booked early, rewriting the economics of the year in a single stroke.

Containment, not improvement

From the system operator’s perspective, the logic is clear. The objective is not to monetise deviation endlessly. It is to compress it. Once behaviour realigns, scheduling margins tighten, operational controls harden, and the settlement meter slows to near idle.

Seen this way, Greenko Kurnool’s RTDA trail is not a story of improvement over time. It is a story of containment after impact.