Government to waive off ISTS charges for Off-Shore Wind Projects

The Government has decided to grant waiver of Inter-State Transmission Charges ISTS charges to Off-Shore Wind Projects and extend the waiver to Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia. This decision has been taken to facilitate wider execution of offshore wind energy initiatives, to promote the expansion of Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia Projects and to encourage the offtake of renewable energy from Energy Storage System Projects.

 

As per the notification issued by the Ministry of Power, a complete waiver of ISTS charges has been given for off-shore wind power projects commissioned on or before 31st December, 2032 for a period of 25 years from the date of commissioning of the Project. The off-shore projects commissioned from 1st January 2033 would be given graded ISTS charges. 

Earlier, all wind energy projects were provided waivers upto 30.06.2025. Now, offshore wind would be treated separately and waiver to these would be granted up to 31st Dec 2032 with graded transmission charges thereafter.

 

The government has also granted a complete waiver of ISTS charges for a period of 25 years from the date of commissioning of the project, for Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia production units, using Renewable Energy commissioned after 8th March 2019, Pumped Storage Systems or Battery Storage Systems or any hybrid combination of these technologies. 

The projects commissioned on or before the 31st of December 2030 shall be eligible for this waiver. The projects after the 31st of December 2030 will attract graded transmission charges thereafter. The decision effectively extends the applicability of the waiver date from 30 June 2025 to 31 Dec 2030.

 

For offshore wind power projects, 25 percent of the applicable ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned



between 2033 to 2034, 50 percent of the applicable ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned between 2034 to 2035, 75 percent of the applicable ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned between 2035 to 2036, and full ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned 2037 onwards.

For Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia plants, 25 percent of the applicable ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned from 2030 to 2031, 50 percent of the applicable ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned from 2032 to 2033, 75 percent of the applicable ISTS charges will apply to plants being commissioned from 2034 to 2035, and full ISTS charges to apply to plants being commissioned 2036 onwards.

 

To promote the development of Pump Storage Plants (PSP), the criteria for availing the complete waiver of ISTS charges for PSP projects has now been linked to the date of award of the project rather than the commissioning of the project. This shall be applicable in cases where construction work is awarded on or before the 30th of June 2025.

 

The ISTS charges on drawl of energy from energy storage projects, which was earlier granted to the project, will henceforth be available for each individual user of such project. The individual user will get this benefit if at least 51 percent of the energy utilized by the user for charging the storage system is renewable energy. 

Earlier the limit of 51 percent was at project level. This change has been proposed in view of the fact that in future the capacity of such storage projects will be shared by many discoms / other users and only some of them may meet this criterion of 51 percent individually while the same may not be met in an aggregate manner at the storage project level.