New Delhi, Dec. 5 -- With rising solar and wind capacity in India's electricity system, these clean sources have crossed the one-third mark. Given the vagaries of weather, however, a key challenge lies in ensuring the delivery of reliable supplies on schedule.

In this context, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, the central power regulator, recently proposed that electricity generation from wind and solar sources be treated at par with reliable conventional sources like coal and gas when it comes to departures from scheduled supplies.

In its draft order, it has set out a soft escalation scale for deviation penalties. These are quite low right now, but will rise to the level levied on conventional supplies by 2031 if the propo...