The Himachal Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (HPERC) has issued the draft Promotion of Generation from the Renewable Energy Sources and Terms and Conditions for Tariff Determination (Eighth Amendment) Regulations, 2026, which seeks to add definitions of biomass and introduce new timeframes for ‘Useful Life’ across different renewable energy categories.

Stakeholders have 30 days to submit their feedback. The draft regulations will be considered by the Commission 30 days after publication in the Rajpatra, Himachal Pradesh, following consideration of any objections or suggestions received within that period.

The Commission stated that it had notified the Renewable Energy Tariff Regulations in November 2017. It also stated that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) later notified the Renewable Energy Tariff Regulations in July 2024.

Against this background, HPERC said it was correct to align certain provisions of the CERC RE Tariff Regulations, 2024, with its own 2017 regulations.

The draft text proposes to introduce ‘Biomass’ as waste produced during agricultural and forestry operations, by-products of agricultural processing, wood from dedicated energy plantations, or recovered from wild bushes or weeds, and wood waste from industrial operations.

It also defines ‘Biomass Gasification’ as the incomplete combustion of biomass, producing combustible gases consisting of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and traces of methane.

The Commission’s proposed amendment also introduces new timeframes for ‘Useful Life’ for renewable energy projects.

Under the draft, the useful life is set at 25 years for wind power projects, biomass power projects with Rankine cycle technology, non-fossil fuel-based cogeneration projects, solar, floating solar, solar thermal projects, biomass gasifier-based projects, and biogas-based projects.

Small hydro projects are assigned a useful life of 40 years, while municipal solid waste or refuse-derived fuel-based power projects are assigned a useful life of 20 years.

For renewable hybrid energy projects, the draft provides that the useful life will be the minimum useful life among the different renewable energy technologies combined for the project, for the composite tariff.

For renewable energy projects with storage, the useful life will be the same as the project’s useful life, assuming no storage is present.

Recently, HPERC proposed a levelized tariff of ₹3.54 (~$0.038)/kWh for biomass gasifier power projects up to 5 MW.

Earlier, HPERC determined the generic levelized tariffs for solar projects up to 5 MW for the FY 2027. The tariffs range from ₹3.34 (~$0.035)/kWh to ₹3.52 (~$0.038)/kWh, depending on project capacity and location.

Subscribe to Mercom’s real-time Regulatory Updates to ensure you don’t miss any critical updates from the renewable industry.