Spot Power Prices Drop 11% in June to Rs 3.32/unit

Average spot power prices drop 11 percent to Rs 3.32 per unit in June compared to the year-ago month, IEX said.

Average spot power prices drop 11 percent to Rs 3.32 per unit in June compared to the year-ago month, the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) said. With the trading of 4,207 million units (MU) of electricity, the volume in the day-ahead market (DAM) grew 12 percent month-on-month. 

As compared to June 2018, the trading volume fell 15 percent. On a daily average basis, around 140 MUs were traded in June 2019, the exchange said. 

“The average Market Clearing Price (MCP) at Rs 3.32 per unit (in June 2019) declined 11 percent over Rs 3.73 per unit in June 2018 mainly on account of reduced demand in the short-term market,” the IEX said. 

Greater availability of power from hydro, solar, coal-based power generating stations having long-term contracts with discoms along with better availability of domestic and imported coal were the key reasons for the decline in traded volume on IEX. 

The hydro, solar and coal generators saw an increase of 5 percent, 52 percent and 9 percent, respectively, IEX said citing National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) data. According to the NLDC data, the all-India peak demand met reached a new high of 183 GW in June 2019, an increase of 7 percent over 170 GW peak demand met in the year-ago month. 

On all-India basis, the energy met was 119 billion units (BU) in June 2019. It is a rise of 8 percent compared to 110 BU last year. The electricity market at IEX – the day-ahead-market (DAM) and term-ahead-market (TAM)- saw combined trading of 4,566 MU, a rise of 12 percent over 4,090 MU traded in June 2018. 

A total of 4,19,781 Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) were traded on May 29. Out of them, 3,27,688 were non-solar and 92,093 were solar certificates. 

“The trade saw a 24 percent decline on a month-on-month basis and 18 percent decline on a year-on-year basis. Both non-solar and solar REC continued to see low supply situation with buy bids exceeding the sell bids due to very low inventory,” the statement said.

Recently, we reported that sales of RECs dropped by 22 percent to 6.98 lakh units in June as compared to 8.96 lakh in the same month a year ago due to lower supply, according to official data issued by the IEX and Power Exchange of India (PXIL), the two power bourses in the country which are engaged in trading of RECs and electricity.