Indian renewable energy certificate sales jump at FY 2015/16 end

Nearly 300,000 solar renewable energy certificates (solar RECs) have been sold in India in January-March 2015, marking an 83% rise in quarter-on-quarter terms.

Still, the gap between supply and demand remains wide, with 621,200 solar RECs issued for the quarter.

For non-solar RECs, on the other hand, this was the first quarter in which buys surpassed certificate issuance in each month. Non-solar REC demand jumped to 2.045 million sold units, which compares to 1.34 million sold in October-December 2015 and to 1.78 million issued for the reporting quarter.

March 31 marks the end of India’s fiscal year. Usually, demand for RECs is the highest then as the utilities and power consumers that need RECs to offset their environmental footprint buy more certificates at the end of the year. This was the case in 2016 too, with both solar and non-solar REC buys rising notably in March, thus driving up quarterly figures.

Under the REC scheme, renewable power producers in India receive credits for the power they produce if they do not take advantage of other incentives. The RECs are traded on the last Wednesday of each month. Both solar and non-solar certificates have been trading at bottom prices since the summer of 2013 and 2012, respectively, due to the huge gap between supply and demand.

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