Renewable energy certificate mechanism in India: A preliminary assessment

The performance of Indian REC mechanism is evaluated by cost competiveness, decentralized distributed generation and renewable energy portfolio diversity and their effectiveness has also been measured on the basis of the available data. Although, it is difficult to make any conclusive remark on the success or failure of REC mechanism due to its short experience, this study examines the process to date to come out with some recommendations which can be used to fine tune the functioning of existing REC market in India. For instance, REC price bounds should be revised because it has been not explicitly supporting cost competiveness by offering 60.33% higher average price than the existing average feed-in tariff (FiT). It is also observed that state-wise contribution in registered capacity is skewed towards few states like Tamil Nadu (27%), Maharashtra (23%), and Uttar Pradesh (22%), which puts pressure on policy makers to restructure the existing REC mechanism.