New Delhi, Jan. 26 -- India's accounting regulators have moved to shield corporate balance sheets from the whims of the weather gods, approving a key reform that will stop renewable energy contracts distorting profit-and-loss statements.

The National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) have addressed a long-standing grievance for industrial power consumers who were treated as traders when they sold excess green power back to the grid, three people familiar with the matter said.

Given the unpredictability of green power, industrial consumers frequently find themselves with surplus energy they cannot store. Existing rules treated Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in such cases as ...