Sales of renewable energy certificates decline over 22% to 1.25 cr units this fiscal

New Delhi: Sales of renewable energy certificates declined over 22 percent to 1.25 crore units this fiscal on IEX and PXIL as compered to 1.61 crore in 2017-18, mainly due to lower inventory (supply), according to official data. In March, sales of RECs or green certificates declined by over 51 percent to 11.78 lakh from 24.26 lakh in the same month last year. Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and Power Exchange of India (PXIL) are the two power bourses in the country, which are engaged in trading of RECs and electricity. [caption id=“attachment_4494601” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] The trading of renewable energy certificates (RECs) is conducted on the last Wednesday of every month. Under the renewable purchase obligation (RPO), bulk purchasers like discoms, open access consumers and capacitive users are required to buy certain proportion of renewable energy or RECs. They can buy RECs from renewable energy producers to meet the RPO norms. The proportion of renewable energy for utilities are fixed by the central and state electricity regulatory commissions. ,An official said that the IEX saw a total trade of 9.34 lakh in March compared to 20.79 lakh in the same month last year. The data shows that in 2018-19, the RECs sales dropped 4 percent to 89.55 lakh as against 93.29 lakh in the previous fiscal, largely due to the lower REC inventory. The official said that both non-solar and solar RECs continued to see low supply situation with buy bids exceeding the sell offer.