Ministry of Power formulates several steps to deepen the market for green electricity and to provide competitive price signals – EQ Mag
Government avails additional Green Day Ahead Market (GDAM) for allowing exclusive trade in Renewable Energy
Ministry of Power has taken following initiatives to deepen the market for green electricity and to provide competitive price signals:
- For unshackling the Renewable Energy(RE) Sector, i.e. to remove barriers in availability and utilisation of RE and to address the issues that have hindered the growth of open access for a long time, Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy through Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 2022 have been issued. The Rules reduces the Open Access limit from 1 MW to 100 kW, which pave the way for small consumers also to purchase RE and there is no limit for Captive Consumers.
- Electricity (Promotion of generation of Electricity from Must-Run Power Plant) Rules, 2021 rules have been notified to provide that in the event of a curtailment of supply from a must-run power plant, the RE generator is also allowed to sell power in the power exchange and recover the cost.
- Waiver of inter-State transmission charges and losses on transmission of the electricity generated from solar and wind sources of energy for the projects up to 30th June, 2025 will make the electricity purchase from renewable energy cheaper and competitive.
- Real Time Market (RTM) was introduced in June, 2020, this allows DISCOMs/Buyers to buy power with an advance notice of one hour and meet the challenges related to grid management due to intermittent and variable nature of RE generation.
- Green Term Ahead Market (GTAM) and Green Day Ahead Market (G-DAM) enables procurement of green energy through Power Exchanges which is accounted towards the Renewable Purchase Obligation of Obligated Entities.
- The Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market has been redesigned effective from 5th December, 2022. The REC life has been increased to perpetuity with no floor and forbearance price. The market has also become fungible with single RECs market instead of Solar and Non-Solar segments.
In addition to existing Day Ahead Market (DAM) Segment at Power Exchange, an additional Green Day Ahead Market (GDAM) is available for allowing exclusive trade in Renewable Energy since October, 2021. The participants submit their bids in two parts, i.e., quantity and price they would be willing to buy or sell in GDAM and DAM based on their eligibility criteria. Participants have option to choose if they would like to transfer unselected quantity in GDAM to the DAM and can also price it differently. Market Clearing or Price Discovery takes place in a sequential manner i.e., first GDAM is cleared followed by DAM. The buyers can claim RPO credit based on the power purchased by the Buyer in GDAM. RE Sellers cleared in DAM may claim issuance of RECs. Total volume traded in GDAM since October 2021 to January 2023 is 4186.64 Million Units (MU).
Green Term Ahead Market (G-TAM) segment functioning since August, 2020 comprises of contracts for trade in electricity generation from renewable energy sources. There are three sub-segments within G-TAM market namely Solar, Non-Solar and Hydro. In Solar sub-segment, only electricity generated from solar energy sources is traded and in Non-Solar sub-segment, electricity generated from renewable energy sources other than Solar energy sources is traded and in Hydro sub-segment, only electricity generated from Hydro energy sources, which are eligible for compliance of Hydro Purchase Obligation (HPO). Under this segment RE can be traded for time horizon of intra-day, day ahead contingency, Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Any day single sided contract which provides flexible procurement of power up to 90 days as per the requirement of the participants. Total volume traded in GTAM since August, 2020 to January, 2023 is 8509.49 Million Units (MU).
This information was given by Shri R.K Singh Union Minister for Power and MNRE in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.
