By Business India Editorial

India Energy Exchange (IEX), the country’s first and largest power trading platform has resumed trading of renewable energy certificates (REC) from today after a gap of 16 months.

“The last REC trade session took place in June 2020,” IEX said in a statement. “The trade has been resumed in line with APTEL’s recent order dated 09.11.2021 and CERC order dated 18.11.2021,” it added.

The power exchange functions on the lines of commodity exchanges and provides a platform for buyers and sellers of electricity to enter into spot contracts for the same day and on a weekly basis up to 11 days. Of about 1,381 billion units (BU) of electricity consumed in India, only 7 per cent is traded on power exchanges.

India now has two power exchanges – India Energy Exchange and PXIL. Pranurja Solution Ltd, led by BSE, PTC India Ltd and ICICI Bank Ltd., has been given permission by the country’s apex power sector regulator Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to start the country’s third power exchange.

IEX provides a nationwide automated trading platform for the physical delivery of electricity, renewables, and certificates. 

Technology has been helping the exchange grow, and has been instrumental in the development of the energy market, said SN Goel, chairman and managing director of IEX.

“Technologies such as smart metering, smart sensors, grid automation and digital network technologies, along with the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) have become the key drivers of the future energy landscape transformation,” he said.

Globally the energy sector is undergoing an accelerated transformation led by renewable energy and digitalisation. India is seeing the same trend. Our renewable installed capacity at 100 GW has seen a CAGR of 16 per cent in the last five years. Increased digitalisation of the power sector is enabling the country with new and emerging opportunities.

IEX is powered by the latest, intuitive and secure technology. “Technology has been instrumental to our growth and energy market development since inception. During the Covid-19 crisis, the Exchange facilitated uninterrupted 24x7 operation of its platform and launched new market segments such as real-time power market, green market, to help the distribution utilities and the industrial consumers in making competitive and efficient power procurement decisions,” he added.

“Our integrated suite of technologies can support significant expansion and help develop new market products and services rapidly. Even at enterprise IT level, we have undertaken initiatives such as cloud-based solutions including HRMS and SAP implementation. We also plan to provide deep data insights and details related to generation, transmission, demand, weather forecasts, etc., to enable the participants make efficient procurement decisions,” he said.