Sale of RECs surges 5-fold to 3.4 lakh in May

The sale of renewable energy certificates (RECs) has jumped over five times to 3.4 lakh in May as compared to 64,134 in April this year on the two power exchanges - PXIL and IEX.
"This month's surge in volume is primarily due to recent judgment of the Supreme Court wherein the Court has directed captive generating companies to comply with Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) as mandated by the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs)," India Energy Exchange (IEX) said in a statement.
According to the statement, in the backdrop of this landmark judgment, several captive generating companies have participated in this trading session at IEX which led to substantial increase in trade volumes.

India has two power exchanges approved by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission -- IEX and Power Exchange India Limited (PXIL) -- which hold auction of RECs on the last Wednesday of every month.
The RECs sale on IEX jumped 550 per cent to 2.92 lakh on May 27 as compared to 45,202 in the previous month's trading session held on April 29.
The trading session held yesterday also marks the highest ever trade in the solar REC segment at IEX ever since the start of trade in solar RECs in May 2012, the statement said.

During the trading session held yesterday at PXIL, the sale of RECs increased by 150 per cent at 47,368 as compared to 18,932 on April 29, the last Wednesday of previous month.

In May REC trading session held yesterday, IEX had 86 per cent of the traded volume whereas PXIL dealt the 14 per cent trading.
"Prior to Wednesday's (May 27) auction, more than 1.29 crore RECs were available in the market for trade, however, the traded volume is low as this the second monthly auction of the (fiscal) year. The traded volumes are expected to increase in the coming months," PXIL said in a statement.