siliconindia | | March 20199The key is data and the analytics that tells the Discom the churn propensity of its customer and the need for offering something that suits a specific customer more GB, less talk time, and better price for night electricityGuru InderVariable charges are time-of-day adjusted. Similarly, cost of electricity from the grid and fuel price for the transpor-tation fleet are all data points. Once you overlay the supply & demand data points, one may decide to change its sup-plier of electricity for a certain period of the day or replace a portion of its transportation fleet to electric vehicles or supplement the DG sets with batteries. Electricity is a heavily regulated sector and with the in-cumbent Discom's universal supply obligations, tariffs are skewed for the businesses, with commercial and industri-al consumers cross subsidising residential & agricultural consumers. With businesses exploring alternate sources of power, for example, open access, power exchange, the Dis-coms are bound to use protectionary measures to prevent the high paying customers from going away. However, it has been the case with TV viewing or cab hailing or mobile number portability, customer's need for decision making runs supreme. In electricity also, we will see this happen. However, for this to happen, the customer, i.e., business-es should participate in the regulatory process. Each state has a State Electricity Regulatory Commission, which in-vites all stakeholders, the Discoms, the Transmission Com-panies, the Electricity Generators, and the consumers for discussions on various issues, including the electricity tar-iffs, customer's right to open access, i.e., right to buy from sources other than the incumbent. Recently, certain states have used protectionary tactics like increasing the fixed charge, disallowing net metering for rooftop solar plants for businesses, levying additional charges on open access transactions. It is important that the consumers get themselves heard at the SERC's consul-tations and lay across their changing energy needs. This can motivate the Discoms to look afresh at their businesses and as is the key to any successful business, build it with the customer at the core. Discoms are today laden with long-term power purchase agreements of RTC (round-the-clock) power. They supplement this with flexible purchase from the power exchanges and other short term swaps and contracts. Unfortunately, a significant part of the energy is lost in the transit, either due to technical reasons or stolen. Next comes collection for the energy that is sold. At the end, Discoms make losses. Everyone associated with the power sector knows the immediate need of rationalising tariffs and reducing losses, but no one dares to touch it. As suggested above for businesses, we also suggest data collection for Discoms, as much as possible and all automatic. This will help Discoms and SERC analyse the problem with data and without basing them on the stories of the past. Worldwide, Discoms come-out with multiple tariff plans, in the same way as a telecom service provider does in India. The key is data and the analytics that tells the Discom the churn pro-pensity of its customer and the need for offering something that suits a specific customer more GB, less talk time, and better price for night electricity.
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