Power Trade at IEX Grew by 57% in February, REC Sales Increased

The volume of power traded at IEX grew by 57% in February, mainly due to Discoms opting for replacement of costlier power with exchange-based procurement.

The volume of power traded at the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), the country’s largest online electricity platform, grew by 57 percent to 4,516 million units in February this year. IEX said the increase in trade volume was mainly due to distribution utilities opting for replacement of their costlier power with exchange-based procurement.

“The other key reason was an increase in demand on account of early onset of summer and agricultural demand in the southern as well the western states, particularly in Telangana due to lift irrigation,” IEX said in its monthly power market analysis.

The day-ahead market traded 4,289 million units during the month with the average market clearing price at Rs 2.91 per unit, registering a 6 percent decline over the price of Rs 3.08 per unit in the corresponding period. “The total sell bids during the month at 10,372 MU were twice the buy bids at 5,233 MU, which ensured lower clearing price and brought significant savings to both the distribution utilities as well as the commercial and industrial consumers,” said IEX.

Apart from this, the volumes in the term-ahead market (TAM) grew 168 percent on a year-on-year basis to 226 MUs indicating the increasing preference of TAM contracts by the distribution utilities for meeting their intra-day to weekly requirements.

There was a significant increase in the trade volume of both solar and non-solar renewable energy certificates (RECs) in the month. A total of 984,157 solar RECs were traded on the IEX during the month. Compared to last month’s REC trading session, there was a huge upsurge in the solar RECs. The sale bids in February were at 1,014,459 and the buy bid was at 1,094,700. 

The month also witnessed a reduction in the price of the non-solar RECs, which dropped by Rs 400 from Rs 2,200 in January to Rs 1,800, a drop of 18.2 percent.

In January, we had reported that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has in its latest order extended the validity of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) that were set to expire on December 31, 2019, until March 31, 2020.