Sustainable Energy Act, 2002

Amendment of section 39 of Electricity Regulation Act, 1999 (Public Service Obligations).

32.Section 39 of the Electricity Regulation Act, 1999 is amended—

(a) in subsection (2)—

(i) by the substitution of “as are necessary to ensure that, in any specified period,” for “as are necessary to ensure that, in any calendar year,”,

(ii) by the deletion of “a specific quantity of” before “electricity from”, and

(iii) by the substitution of “generate that electricity” for “generate that quantity of electricity” in paragraph (a),

(b) in subsection (5)—

(i) by the deletion in paragraph (a) of “in respect of electricity provided to such customers”, and

(ii) by the substitution for paragraph (b) of the following paragraph—

“(b) the collection and recovery of payments in respect of the levy—

(i) from final customers by the Board or the holder of a licence or an authorisation or the holder of a permit under section 37 of the Principal Act,

(ii) from the Board or such holders of a licence, authorisation or permit by the distribution system operator or the transmission system operator, and

(iii) from the distribution system operator by the transmission system operator,”,

(c) in subsection (5)—

(i) by the insertion in paragraph (a) of “or holders of a permit under section 37 of the Principal Act”, after “the Board or holders of a licence or an authorisation”, and

(ii) by the insertion in paragraph (c) of “or holders of permits under section 37 of the Principal Act” after “the Board and holders of licences or authorisations”,

(d) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (5)—

“(5A) (a) The levy referred to in paragraph (a) of subsection (5) shall be imposed on final customers in respect of a levy period in such a manner that—

(i) the levy is apportioned between each category of electricity accounts specified in paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 on the basis of the maximum demand attributable to that category of accounts as a proportion of the aggregate of the maximum demand attributable to each of the three categories of accounts, and

(ii) each holder of an electricity account who is a final customer is charged and liable to pay the levy in respect of each electricity account on the basis set out in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2.

(b) The attribution of the maximum demand in respect of each category of electricity account shall be carried out by the distribution system operator with the approval of the Commission in respect of each levy period.

(c) In this subsection ‘levy period’ means a calendar year or such shorter period as may be specified in the order.”,

(e) in subsection (6)—

(i) by the insertion of “or the holder of a permit under section 37 of the Principal Act” after “or an authorisation” wherever those words occur in that subsection,

(ii) by the substitution of “specified period” for “specified period of years”, and

(iii) by the insertion of “or part of a year” after “each year”,

and

(f) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (8)—

“(8) The Minister shall exercise the powers conferred by this section so as to ensure that the sums realised by the levy or otherwise are sufficient (after the payment of the administrative expenses, as certified by the Commission, of the Board and holders of licences or authorisations or holders of permits under section 37 of the Principal Act incurred in the collection of the levy) to pay to the Board and holders of licences or authorisations or holders of permits under section 37 of the Principal Act the payment required to be made by the order.”.