Open access (electricity)
Topic: Infrastructure: Transport, Communications and Energy · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Open access lets large electricity consumers or generators use the transmission and distribution networks (the wires) to buy power from, or sell power to, any supplier. Without it they would have to deal only with the local distribution company (discom). Users pay wheeling charges, which are fees for using the wires. They also pay a cross-subsidy surcharge. This surcharge makes up for the extra money the discom loses when high-paying customers leave, because those customers were paying above cost to keep tariffs low for others. Open access brings competition and choice into the power market.
Example
A large factory can use open access to buy solar power straight from a solar park in another district. It pays wheeling charges and the surcharge to the discom. The Green Energy Open Access Rules 2022 lowered the threshold for buying green power this way to 100 kW, so smaller consumers can now do it too.
Don't confuse with
- Net metering: this credits a rooftop solar owner's surplus against their own bill. It is not about choosing a different supplier.
Related concepts
- Energy infrastructure
- Energy security
- Plant load factor
- Aggregate technical and commercial losses
- Power purchase agreement
- Cross-subsidy
- Time-of-day tariff
- Feed-in tariff
- Levelised cost of electricity
- Grid parity