What “open access” actually means
For most of India’s history, a business bought all its electricity from one supplier: the local distribution company, or DISCOM. Open access breaks that monopoly. It lets a large consumer buy power from someone else’s generating plant — an independent solar developer, say — and have that power delivered to the factory over the shared transmission and distribution grid, in exchange for network charges.
Think of it as separating the energy from the wires. You contract the cheaper green energy from a plant that might be a hundred kilometres away; the grid remains the delivery road, and you pay a toll to use it. For a factory whose roof is far too small for its load, this is often the only practical way to run on solar.
What the Green Energy Open Access Rules 2022 changed
Open access has existed since Section 42 of the Electricity Act 2003, but for years it was effectively limited to very large consumers — the threshold was 1 MW of contracted demand. The Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy Through Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 2022 rewrote the deal for renewables specifically, and three changes matter most:
- The threshold fell to 100 kW. A consumer needs only 100 kW of contracted demand (which can be aggregated across connections) to seek green open access — a tenfold expansion in who qualifies.
- Approval got a deadline. Applications are deemed approved in 15 days if the nodal agency does not respond, replacing an open-ended wait.
- The surcharges were tamed. The cross-subsidy surcharge was capped — it cannot be raised by more than 50% of the rate applicable in your year of grant, for twelve years — and the additional surcharge was waived for green open access. Where the green power feeds green hydrogen or green ammonia production, both surcharges fall away entirely.
How the power — and the money — flows
The charges are the part buyers most often underestimate. The tariff you agree with the developer is only the energy component; on top of it sit wheeling and transmission charges for using the network, the cross-subsidy surcharge (capped, but real), standby charges, and banking charges if you park surplus daytime solar with the grid to draw back later. A quoted “₹3.50 open-access tariff” always lands higher once these are added — the useful number is the all-in landed cost, and that is what you should compare against your DISCOM bill.
Open access, captive, or rooftop?
Open access is one of three common routes to solar for a large consumer, and they are not mutually exclusive:
- Rooftop — cheapest per unit, but limited by roof area; most factories cannot fit enough.
- Captive / group captive — you own ≥26% of an off-site plant and consume ≥51% of it, which exempts you from the surcharges; usually the lowest landed cost, but with an equity commitment. We compare the two in captive vs open-access solar for factories.
- Open access — no ownership, a fast and flexible contract, a capped surcharge; the simplest way to buy large volumes of green power without building anything.
Where storage comes in
Open-access solar has the same limitation as any solar: it only flows in daylight. A single-shift daytime factory may consume most of it live; a two- or three-shift operation exports the midday surplus and then buys expensive grid power all evening. A battery closes that gap — storing the contracted solar when it is plentiful and releasing it into the evening Time-of-Day peak, so more of your open-access energy displaces costly grid units. A solar-plus-storage setup effectively turns a daytime open-access contract into a round-the-clock supply, and renewable firming does the same at grid scale.
What this means for you
If your business draws 100 kW or more and your roof cannot host enough solar, open access is now a realistic, relatively quick way to buy green power at a landed cost that often beats the DISCOM tariff — especially after the 2022 rules capped the surcharges and put a clock on approvals. The decision hinges on your state’s exact charges, the developer’s tariff, and how much of the daytime supply you can actually use. To see whether open access, captive or rooftop-plus-storage fits your load, model the options with our savings calculator or send us your consumption profile.
Policy snapshot as of July 2026. Open-access eligibility, the cross-subsidy surcharge cap, wheeling, banking and standby charges and approval timelines are set by central rules and state regulations and change by notification — verify the current terms for your state and DISCOM before financial decisions.