(1) These regulations may be called the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Standards of Performance of inter-State transmission licensees) Regulations, 2012.

(2) These regulations shall come into force from the date of their publication in the Official Gazette.

These regulations shall be applicable to all the inter-State transmission licensees.

(1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires

(a) Act means the Electricity Act, 2003 (36 of 2003) as amended from time to time;

(b) affected person means a user of the inter-State transmission system who is affected due to non-adherence to the Standards of Performance specified in these regulations by the inter-State transmission licensee;

(c) Commission means the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission referred to in sub-section (1) of Section 76 of the Act;

(d) Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) shall have the same meaning as defined in Section 2(36) of the Act;

(e) Inter-State Transmission Licensee means a licensee including a deemed inter-State transmission licensee authorized to establish, operate and maintain transmission lines of the inter-State Transmission System;

(f) User means a user of any segment/element of the inter-State Transmission System and shall include all generators, State Transmission Utilities, State Electricity Boards (SEBs) or load serving entities directly connected to the inter-State Transmission System including Bulk Consumers and any other entity/person;

(g) Year means a financial year.

(2) Words and expressions used in these regulations and not defined herein but defined in the Act or any of the regulations made by the Commission, shall have the meanings as assigned to them respectively in the Act, and regulations made by the Commission from time to time.

OBJECTIVE, NORMS AND METHODOLOGY

The objectives of these regulations are to ensure compliance of the Standards of Performance by the inter-State transmission licensees and to provide for an efficient, reliable, coordinated and economical system of electricity transmission, non-adherence of which would entitle the affected parties to compensation.

(1) All inter-State transmission licensees shall comply with the Standards of Performance specified in these regulations:

(a) Transmission System Availability,

(i) The transmission system availability shall be calculated element-wise on monthly basis, in the same manner as provided for in the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) Regulations, 2009, as amended from time to time and any subsequent enactment thereof.

(ii) The deemed availability of the transmission elements under outage shall be as specified in the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Term and Conditions of Tariff) Regulations, 2009, as amended from time to time and any subsequent enactment thereof.

(iii) The element-wise monthly availability of the transmission system shall not be below the availability as given below:

Notes. (1) Tower collapse shall not be counted for the purpose of calculation of monthly availability of AC transmission line and HVDC bi-pole line.

(2) Failure of Inter-Connecting Transformer (ICT) and Reactor shall not be counted for the purpose of calculation of availability of Inter-Connectivity Transformer and Reactor.

(iv) The element-wise monthly availability shall be certified by the Member Secretary of the Regional Power Committee.

(b) Restoration time. Restoration time for different types of failures of transmission line and Inter-Connecting Transformer (ICT) and reactors shall not exceed the following time limit:

6. Any failure by the inter-State transmission licensee to maintain the standards of performance specified in these regulations shall render the said licensee liable to payment of compensation to an affected person claiming such compensation under the provisions of the Act:

Provided also that the payment of compensation by the Inter-State transmission licensee shall be without prejudice to any penalty, which may be imposed or any prosecution which may be initiated by the Commission as provided in the Act.

An affected person who has suffered a loss on account of non-adherence to the Standard of Performance by any inter-State transmission licensee may make an appropriate application to the Commission for award of compensation:

Provided that the Commission shall determine the compensation after giving reasonable opportunity to the transmission licensees of being heard:

Provided further that the compensation to be paid by the inter-State transmission licensee to the affected party shall be limited to the transmission charges of the particular element to the extent to which it has affected the supply of electricity to the affected person:

Provided further that the inter-State transmission licensee shall not be entitled to recover the amount of compensation awarded through tariff from the users of the transmission electricity:

Provided also that no claim for compensation shall be entertained if the application for the claim is filed after expiry of a period of ninety days from the end of the month when the availability of the transmission system falls short of the availability specified in Clause 5(a) and ninety days from the date of restoration of transmission element, as the case may be, for the standards prescribed in clause (b) of Regulation 5 of these regulations.

INFORMATION TO BE FURNISHED BY THE INTER-STATE TRANSMISSION LICENSEES

(1) All inter-State transmission licensees, in accordance with Section 59 of the Act, shall furnish to the Commission, (a) the level of performance achieved, and (b) the number of cases in which compensation was paid, and (c) the aggregate amount of the compensation, in the formats in the Schedule of these regulations.

(2) Such information in the requisite formats shall be submitted to the Commission twice during the financial year, on six monthly basis by 31st October and 30th April for the periods April to September and October to March respectively.

(3) All inter-State transmission licensees shall display on their websites the actual performance against the specified Standards of Performance on a monthly basis and the aggregate amount of compensation paid, if any, in the formats enclosed in the Schedule.

MISCELLANEOUS

The Commission may, if it considers necessary or expedient to do so and for the reasons to be recorded in writing, relax adherence to any specific Standard of Performance during Force Majeure conditions such as war, mutiny, civil commotion, riot, flood, cyclone, storm, lightning, earthquake, grid failure, and strike/curfew, lockout, fire affecting the inter-State Transmission Licensee's installments and operation activities, or under such other specific circumstances:

Provided that the Inter-State Transmission Licensee shall not be discharged from its liability on account of its failure to maintain the Standards of Performance under these regulations if such failure can be attributed to the negligence or deficiency or lack of preventive maintenance of the inter-State transmission system or failure to take reasonable precaution which has resulted in loss to the affected person.

If any difficulty arises in giving effect to any of the provisions of these Regulations, the Commission may, by general or specific order, make such provisions not inconsistent with the provisions of the Act, as may appear to be necessary for removing the difficulty.

SCHEDULE

EI. AC Transmission Line/ICT/Static VAR Compensator/Series Compensator/HVDC (Back-to-Back Stations and Bi-Pole Links)/Line Rectors/Bus Reactors Outage Details for the month of

II. Elements where restoration time has exceeded the standards specified in Regulation 5(b).

III. Details of compensation paid by the inter-State transmission licensee

IV. Data to be furnished by the inter-State Transmission Licensees to POSOCO

(1) The Dependability Index defined as

where N_c is the number of correct operations during the given time interval and N_f is the number of failures to operate at internal power system faults.

(2) The Security Index defined as

where N_u is the number of unwanted operations.

(3) The Reliability Index defined

where N_i is the number of incorrect operations and is the sum of N_f and N_u.

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(4) From above

(5) The number of trippings of each transmission element. Five or more trippings of a transmission element in a month to be put on the website by the inter-State Transmission Licensees and reported to the Commission by POSOCO.

Note.

1. The data for these indices are presently prescribed for collection by the System Operator.

2. These indices shall be computed by the POSOCO and furnished to the Commission on monthly basis.

V. Data to be compiled by the inter-State Transmission Licensees

The restoration times for different types of failures of a transmission line and failure of Inter-Connecting Transformer (ICT) and reactor in the following format:

1. Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, Noti. No. L-1/67/2012-CERC, dated September 17, 2012, published in the Gazette of India, Extra., Part III, Section 4, dated 21st September, 2012, pp. 9 16, No. 204