IEX Reveals Key Contributors To August Volume Growth
Day-ahead market, which is IEX's biggest market, has also started doing really well, the joint managing director says.
Indian Energy Exchange is seeing good growth across its business, real-time markets and green markets, as well as the renewable-energy-certificate business, which have emerged as the major contributors, according to Joint Managing Director Rohit Bajaj.
IEX informed the exchanges on Sept. 2 that its subsidiary, International Carbon Exchange, entered into an "issuer agreement" with the International Tracking Standard Foundation and Evident EV. The agreement authorises ICX to issue international renewable energy certificates in the Indian market.
"All across, we are seeing very good growth, but if you asked me what products are contributing majorly to it, then it is real-time markets, green markets and the certificates," Bajaj told NDTV Profit.
Bajaj said the company clocked a 36% annual growth in August, driven by the electricity exchange and renewable certificate segments. "Electricity side, we have done the highest ever volume this month in real-time markets and green markets have picked up very well starting July. Day-ahead market, which is our biggest market, has also started doing really well," he said.
The company's growth was subdued in the same period last year because of supply-side limitations. However, government initiatives increased coal production and the company's growth was up 31% on a year-to-date basis as compared to the same period in the previous year, according to Bajaj.
"Last year, our growth was 14% and that was subdued because of limitations on the supply side. This year, with many initiatives by the government, we are seeing coal production going up in double digits," he said. "On a YTD basis, we are at 31% up level as compared to last year."
The joint managing director expects that the benefits of the lower prices on the supply side are likely to continue. He also projected high demand for electricity going forward, citing an increase in overall demand.
Consecutively, for the last two months, we have seen below Rs 5-per-unit price, and this is a sweet spot where we see buyers coming in to meet their requirements and they are also coming to replace their costlier power.Rohit Bajaj
IEX is expecting a very high demand going forward as overall demand in the country is increasing. "We have seen an 8–9% growth in the last couple of years and this year, we are again 7% plus," Bajaj said.
Prices are likely to remain around the Rs 5-per-unit level based on capacity addition across renewable and traditional energy sources, and lower prices of imported coal. The price may even go below Rs 5 per unit in the winter months due to lower demand, according to Bajaj.
"We are expecting 30–40 GW of capacity overall to come in this," he said. "With imported coal prices coming down and staying at this level, this also provides a lot of room for additional supply because the utilisation of imported coal-based plants also increases."
