- (1.) THE petitioner in the present petition has made the following prayers, namely - (a) The Hon'ble Commission may please hold and clarify that the three months period be constituted for application for issuance of REC shall be from the date of receipt of the energy certificate by the renewable energy generator from the SLDC. (b) The Hon'ble Commission may be pleased hold that three months period stipulated in the regulation 7(1) of the CERC (Terms and Conditions for recognition and issuance of Renewable Energy Certificate for Renewable Energy Generation) Regulations, 2010 means three months clear days for applying for the issuance of REC for the getting of REC and the same period not restricted to less period of 2 months and 15 days. (c) The Hon'ble Commission may be pleased to hold that the non -issuance of the REC on the application dated 26.06.12 submitted on 29.06.12 of the petitioner to the Central Agency till date without assigning any reason in writing is in contravention of the CERC (Terms and Conditions for recognition and issuance of Renewable Energy Certificate for Renewable Energy Generation) Regulations, 2010. (d) The Hon'ble Commission may be pleased to hold that the Petitioners No. 1 & 2 are eligible to get REC for 1139 MWH energy & 413 MWH respectively generated in the month of March, June and August 2012 issued by SLDC Maharashtra. (e) The Hon'ble Commission may be pleased to direct to the respondent Central Agency to process the pending applications dated 26.06.12 (submitted on 29.06.12), 16.09.12 (submitted on 20.09.12) and 16.11.12 (submitted on 29.11.12) of the petitioners for the REC for the energy injected into the grid for the month of March, June and August 2012 and issue the REC against above energy. (f) The Hon'ble Commission may pass any further order as deemed fit in the interest of justice. The petitioner has set up six Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs) (2 Ã - 0.8 MW and 4 Ã - 0.23 MW) in the State of Maharashtra. The WTGs are said to be under commercial operation since 31.3.2010 and electricity generated is being injected into the grid. After the petitioner obtained accreditation from the State Agency and registration from the Central Agency, Renewable Energy Certificates (hereafter "RECs") were issued to it by the Central Agency from time to time. The details of accreditation and registration furnished by the petitioner are as under:
(2.) THE petitioner has alleged that it applied for issuance of RECs for the months of March, June and August 2012 within the stipulated time of three months time in accordance with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions for recognition and issuance of Renewable Energy Certificate for Renewable Energy Generation) Regulations, 2010 (hereafter "the REC Regulations"), but the Central Agency has not issued RECs. The petitioner has submitted that for the month of March 2012, it made application dated 26.6.2012 to the Central Agency on 29.6.2012. However, the Central Agency has not issued RECs since the official of the Central Agency had been insisting that the application was not received. The petitioner has further alleged that it was not issued RECs for the month of June 2012 for which the application dated 16.9.2012 was submitted on 20.9.2012, on the ground that the Central Agency had sent an e -mail dated 21.9.2012 to the petitioner informing it of the defect in the application since the certified copy of the Energy Injection Report had not been filed along with the application. The petitioner has denied to have received any such email from the Central Agency. As regards the month of August 2012, the petitioner has submitted that it made on -line application on 16.11.2012 and subsequently on 29.11.2012, it submitted the said application in physical form which the Central Agency did not entertain on the ground of non -submission of on -line application and thus RECs for the month of August 2012 too have not been issued. The petitioner has submitted that under proviso to clause (1) of Regulation 7 of the REC Regulations, the RE Generators get effectively two months and a half instead of three clear months as specified under the main clause for making the application for RECs. The petitioner has submitted that three months period should be clearly available to the eligible entity to apply for the certificate. The petitioner has further submitted that on account of the delay/default in issuance of the relevant Energy Injection Report by SLDC, the RE Generators would not get sufficient time for applying for RECs. The petitioner has accordingly urged that the time period of three months should be counted from the date of issuance of Energy Injection Report by the SLDC.
(3.) THE respondent, NLDC, which has been declared as the Central Agency under the REC Regulations in its reply dated 13.2.2013, has submitted as under; (a) The understanding of the petitioner that the period of three months for applying for RECs should commence from the date of issuance of monthly Energy Injection Report by SLDC is not correct as the RE Generators are required to apply for issuance of RECs after completing all the formalities like getting the certified Energy Injection Report from the concerned SLDC within the stipulated period of three months. (b) The web portal designed by the Central Agency allows filing of applications on 1st and 15th day of every month. However after applying on line, the RE Generators are required to submit physical application to the Central Agency till last working day of the month in accordance with clause (1) of Regulation 7 of the REC Regulations and the detailed procedure approved by this Commission. (c) For the month of March 2012, the on -line application was made by the petitioner but the application in physical form was not submitted till 27.6.2012. The petitioner on 27.6.2012 was asked to submit the application in physical form along with the supporting documents. However, the application was not received till the last day of June 2012. As such, RECs for the month of March 2012 could not be issued. (d) As regards RECs for the month of June 2012, the application in physical form was received by the Central Agency on 21.9.2012. However, it was not accompanied by a copy of the certified Energy Injection Report from SLDC. The petitioner was asked the same day to submit the said document. However, since the said document was not received within stipulated time, RECs could not be issued. (e) For the month of August 2012, the petitioner had the flexibility to submit the web application from 1.9.2012 to 15.11.2012. Thereafter, it could submit the application in physical form to the Central Agency till last working day of November 2012. However, the petitioner did not apply on -line within the stipulated timelines. In the absence of application, RECs could not be issued to the petitioner.;