ORDER

This writ petition is filed impugning the action of the Respondents in refusing to give consent for setting up 8 MW waste heat recovery Co-generation plant at the 1st petitioner vide letter No. CEGM(IPC/SE) IPC/F.MPL/E.No.901/22 dated 21.10.2022 as illegal arbitrary and without jurisdiction.

Consequently a direction is sought to respondents to provide grid synchronization to 8 MW power generated by waste heat recovery co-generation plant located at the 1st petitioner premises and allow open access to the 2nd petitioner.

2. It is the contention of petitioners that the 1 st petitioner is the consumer of DISCOM under HT-1 category with a CMD of 1501 KVA with service No.NLG-438 and the 2nd petitioner is also the consumer of DISCOM with a CMD of 21500 KVA with service No.MBK-735. The 1st petitioner is the manufacture of Sponge Iron having two kilns of 100 TPD each and wanted to introduce steel manufacturing unit in the same premises at Velimineedu Village, Chityal Mandal, Nalgonda District and for the said purpose, had approached the respondents for additional MD of 8600 KVA. The 3rd respondent vide letter dated 02.08.2022 had obliged the said request and called upon petitioners to give acceptances. It is their further case that vide letter dated 10.08.2022, the 1 st petitioner conveyed its acceptance to the respondents and on the advice of the Environmental Engineer, petitioners had approached Pollution Control Broad for utilisation of heat that is generated in the kilns to generate power which will serve the needs of petitioners, which will also help the environment. The Pollution Control Broad had granted permission on 11.07.2022 The 1 st petitioner had approached the 2 nd respondent seeking permission/consent for power synchronisation of 8 MW power generated from waste heat recovery co-generation power plant vide letter dated 22.09.2022, wherein it was informed to respondents that out of 8 MW power, 1.5 MW will be utilised by the 1st petitioner and 6.5 MW will be utilised by the 2 nd petitioner, however, the 2 nd respondent vide letter dated 21.10.2022 have rejected the said representation / request of petitioners giving reason that request of petitioners cannot be considered due to congestion in the grid. The said order of rejection is under challenge in the present Writ Petition.

3. Respondents have filed the counter through its Chief General Manager so also on behalf of Respondent 1, 2 and

4. The contentions of respondents is that excess capacity of the proposed plant of petitioners may inject unscheduled power which is likely to affect the quality of power of the area in terms of voltage fluctuations and harmonic injections which will ultimately result in grid instability and that petitioners proposed waste heat recovery plant will be variable in nature, since heat that could be generated from petitioner unit will be unstable, it will affect the schedules of DISCOM to supply 24x7 quality power to all the consumers. It is their further contention that as per Section 9 of the Electricity Act (for short, ‘the Act’), any person can build and maintain a capital generating plant, however, the same is subject to open access regulation claim under Section 42 (2) of the Act which requires open access applicant to obtain technical clearance from the concerned DISCOM. The respondents have already informed petitioners that the proposed waste heat recovery plant is greater than existing CMD of petitioners which may result in excess injection of power which leads to instability of grid and may result in penalisation to DISCOM in the form of deviation charges for violating the Grid Code.

4. Learned counsel for petitioners Sri Erigi Ganesh submits that in similar circumstances, in Writ Petition No. 32426 of 2023, this Court while issuing notice before admission, directed the 1 st respondent to permit sync