The Jharkhand State Electricity Regulatory Commission (JSERC) on August 18, 2026, issued the Jharkhand State Electricity Regulatory Commission (State Grid Code) Regulations, 2026.
These Regulations shall come into force from August 21, 2026.
The following has been stated:
• The Regulations establish a comprehensive framework to ensure the safe, reliable, and economic operation of the state's power grid. Applicable to the SLDC, STU, DISCOMs, and all generating stations, the regulations are overseen by a newly constituted Grid Coordination Committee (GCC). This committee manages state-level energy accounting, coordinates maintenance, and enforces grid discipline. Strict monitoring mechanisms are introduced, empowering authorities to penalise non-compliance—such as false capacity declarations or ignoring dispatch orders—with financial penalties, third-party compliance audits, or grid disconnection. Technically, the regulations mandate that the STU publish a rolling five-year grid plan, updated annually by September 30th.
• The transmission network shall be engineered to withstand major contingency outages (such as the loss of a 400kV or 220kV line) without resorting to forced load shedding. Point-of-connection equipment shall adhere to BIS/IEC standards, limiting fault clearance times to 100 milliseconds for 400kV/800kV systems. Furthermore, all generators shall maintain operational turbine speed governors with precise droop settings (3%–6% for thermal/renewables) to automate primary frequency responses and prevent grid collapse via automatic under-frequency load shedding triggers ranging from 49.40 Hz to 49.00 Hz.
• Operationally and commercially, the grid functions under the Availability Based Tariff (ABT) regime across 96 daily 15-minute time blocks. Generating units shall submit capability declarations by 6:00 AM on the day ahead (D-1), with "shall-run" renewable and run-of-river hydro stations legally protected from curtailment. Thermal plants are assigned a technical minimum turndown operating limit of 55% of their Maximum Continuous Rating (MCR), with cost-compensation provisions for part-load operations. Weekly Deviation Settlement Mechanism (DSM) and Reactive Energy bills shall be paid within 10 days, or a daily default interest rate of 0.04% applies. Additionally, all entities shall enforce a cybersecurity framework, reporting breaches immediately and submitting an annual audit report by June 30th.
[Notification No. – 128]
