Green Certificates Trading Mirrors Power Slowdown with 35% Drop

Renewable energy certificates (REC) sales slumped by over 35 per cent to 2.37 lakh units in April. In April 2019, total sales had crossed 3.68  lakh. The figures come from the Indian Energy Exchange, the premier platform for trading in these certificates, along ith Power Exchange of India (PXIL).

RECs are a significant option for generators, providing an alternative route to sell electricity from renewable sources just like conventional electricity and offer the green attribute (RECs) separately to obligated entities to fulfil their RPO. One REC is created when one megawatt hour of electricity is generated from an eligible renewable energy source.

While IEX recorded Power Exchange of India (PXIL) recorded sales of 0.49 lakh RECs in April as against 1.44 lakh earlier.

The IEX data showed that both non-solar and solar RECs witnessed higher supply, with sell bids exceeding buy bids. There were buy bids for over 2.1 lakh RECs against sell bids for over 4.54 lakh RECs in April this year.

Similarly, the supply was high at PXIL. There were buy bids for over 0.49 lakh RECs and sell bids for over 1.16 lakh units for the month.

Overall supply for RECs was high as the total buy bids at both power exchanges was over 2.59 lakh units against sell bids of over 6.7 lakh units. This was also because of many generators, especially in the commercial segment with open access looking to sell their power generated at the exchanges, when faced with a lockdown or drop in demand from their usual clients.