January spot power price rises 4% to Rs 3.33 per unit

New Delhi: Average spot power price at Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) rose slightly by 4 per cent at Rs 3.33 per unit in January compared to same month year ago mainly due to subdued demand.

"The average Market Clearing Price (MCP) at Rs 3.33 per unit registered 4 per cent increase (in January) over Rs 3.20 per unit in same month last year (January 2018)," an IEX statement said.

According to the day-ahead-market (DAM) data at IEX, with trade of 3,281 MU (million units), the volume in the day-ahead-market saw an increase of 7 per cent on month-on-month (M-o-M) basis and decline of 3 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis. On a daily average basis about 106 MU were traded.

The exchange said the market clearing price and volume in January 2019 remained almost same as that in December 2018, mainly on account of winter and subdued demand for power, especially in the northern states.

It also said that 'One Nation, One Price' was realised for 18 days during the month. The day-ahead-market experienced transmission congestion of 1.6 per cent mainly in the import towards southern region. On daily average basis, 686 participants traded in the market during the month. As per the NLDC (national local dispatch centre) statistics, the all India peak demand touched 162 GW on 18th January, registering a 4 per cent increase over peak demand registered in January 2018. On all India basis, the energy supplied in January 2019 at 103 BU (billion units) registered marginal increase of 3 per cent from 100.7 BU compared to last year.

The electricity market at IEX - the day-ahead-market and term-ahead-market —combined traded 3,383 MU in January 2019, an increase of 7 per cent over 3,156 traded in December 2018 and at almost par with 3,427 MU traded in January 2018.

In the trading session for renewable energy certificates (RECs) held on 30 January 2019, the IEX saw a total trade of 6,44,443 RECs comprising of 5,47,166 non-solar RECs and 97,277 solar RECs.

The trading session saw a 254 per cent increase on Y-o-Y basis and 68 per cent on M-o-M basis since several captive entities as well as the distribution companies took measures to fulfill their RPO obligation.

However, it said that both non-Solar and solar REC continued to see low supply situation with buy bids exceeding the sell bids, and consequently the prices discovered on the exchange have been on the rise.

The price for non-solar RECs went upto Rs 1500 per REC, an increase of 14% M-o-M, while solar REC price increased to Rs 1,750 per REC, an increase of 21 per cent M-o-M.

In fiscal 2018-19 (year to date), IEX has cumulatively traded 6,961,717 RECs over 6,859,296 traded in the same period last year.