Q4 solar certificates demand in India more than doubles q/q

As much as 163,220 solar renewable energy certificates (solar RECs) have been sold in India in October-December 2015, which marks a 133.5% rise in quarter-on-quarter terms, the REC registry shows.

Thanks to a jump in December, non-solar REC demand also improved significantly in the closing quarter of 2015, which is also India’s third fiscal quarter. Over 1.34 million such certificates were sold, as compared to 446,150 non-solar RECs redeemed in July-September.

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. The combined value of REC sales for the fourth quarter of 2015, both solar and non-solar, reaches INR 2.57 billion (USD 39m/EUR 35m).

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. The bottom price for solar RECs was cut by the government to INR 3,500 apiece from the start of 2015 in a bid to boost demand. The minimum trading price for non-solar RECs remains INR 1,500 per certificate.

(INR 100 = USD 1.506/EUR 1.379)

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