- The green certificates trading was suspended in July this year after APTEL decided to postpone the trading by four weeks
- Trading of RECs or green certificates is done on the last Wednesday of every month on the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and the Power Exchange India (PXIL)
The trading of renewable energy certificates (RECs) is likely to be resumed after a gap of four months on 25th November. This is due to the fcat that electricity tribunal APTEL has completed all hearings and may issue the final judgement soon on the REC pricing issue. Trading of RECs or green certificates is done on the last Wednesday of every month on the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and the Power Exchange India (PXIL).
The green certificates trading was suspended in July this year after APTEL decided to postpone the trading by four weeks. This was done while hearing three separate petitions related to an issue of fixing floor and forbearance prices of RECs by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).
PXIL managing director and chief executive officer Prabhajit Kumar Sarkar said that APTEL has completed all hearings and kept the order reserved on the issue (of REC pricing). It expects that the final order to be released soon, which would pave the way for restart of transactions in RECs from 25th November onwards
Rohit Bajaj, head and senior vice president-business development, IEX said that it understands that APTEL will soon issue the order in the matter, and hopefully the trading in REC market on the power exchanges will resume in November (25, the last Wednesday of the month) after a gap of 4 months.
Three separate appeals
According to the latest update on the case available on the APTEL portal, the arguments on the three petitions are concluded and judgement is reserved. It also says that the interim order, if any, shall continue till the judgement is pronounced.
In July, APTEL had postponed the REC trading scheduled on July 29 by four weeks till August 26, after hearing three separate appeals filed by the Green Energy Association, the Indian Wind Power Association and Techno Electric and Engineering Company Ltd against the CERC order issued on fixing REC floor and forbearance prices. The REC trading was not done on 26th August 26, 30th September and 28th October consequently.
According to a CERC order in June, the floor price of solar and non-solar RECs has been reduced to zero from Rs 1,000 earlier.The forbearance (ceiling) price of solar and non-solar was reduced to Rs 1,000 for both from Rs 2,400 and Rs 3,000, respectively. The forbearance price and floor price fixed by the CERC are effective from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 or until further orders of the commission.
In June, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain Green Energy Association’s (GEA) appeal on stopping REC price revision by the CERC. Industry experts held the view that higher REC prices put additional burden on consumers in power tariff.
Under the renewable purchase obligation (RPO), bulk purchasers like discoms, open access consumers and capacitive users are required to buy a certain proportion of RECs. They can buy RECs from renewable energy producers to meet the RPO norms. One REC is created when one megawatt hour of electricity is generated from an eligible renewable energy source.
