India I-REC market expands amid record issuances, eyes price stability: panel

India's International Renewable Energy Certificate market is growing rapidly, with record issuances and some of Asia's highest redemption rates, but lower prices and the need for more sophisticated procurement tools are emerging as key challenges, panelists said at I-TRACK Day India on Sept. 11.

Issuances for 2025 vintage certificates reached a record 16.9 million on the Xpansiv Evident registry, while redemptions rose 26% year over year to 14.1 million, according to data presented by EKI Energy Services Chairman and Managing Director Manish Dabkara at the event in New Delhi. EKI Energy Services provides climate change and sustainability advisory services.

"Yet prices have slid to 50-60 cents/megawatt-hour, well below regional peers with lower redemption rates," Dabkara said.

Price lag

Bangladesh commands prices above $2/MWh at a redemption rate of around 59%, while prices in Malaysia trade over $2/MWh at a redemption rate of about 82% and those in Sri Lanka are above $1/MWh at 70%, according to data presented by Dabkara. India, despite its 85%-86% redemption rate, trades below all three markets.

"The demand growth is there, and supply is not very much oversupplied," Dabkara said. "Whatever loss is happening, it's a loss for the country and for the sellers."

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, assessed India solar I-REC vintage 2026 at 47 cents/MWh on Sept. 11, unchanged week on week.

Prices across Vietnam, Thailand and India have all declined from levels seen two years ago, according to panelists. India's I-REC market has followed a seasonal price cycle, with prices declining from March onward before recovering during the December-to-March peak demand window.

Solar dominated India's technology mix, with certificates reaching 19.63 million through 2025 -- the highest ever for any single technology in the I-REC system, according to Bharti Ladiya, senior manager of strategy and business development at ICX, a local issuer of I-RECs in India. "Total active capacity registered with I-REC stood at about 22 gigawatts (through 2026), with hydro issuances having effectively ceased following a halt in 2024," Ladiya said.

Next frontier

Virtual power purchase agreements, or vPPAs, are emerging as a complementary instrument for corporate buyers seeking longer-term price certainty and stronger additionality claims beyond spot I-REC markets, said Eesha Peshawaria, who leads vPPA sales at renewable energy developer CleanMax.

A vPPA is a bilateral financial agreement to supply energy attribute certificates from a new, dedicated renewable plant without physical power delivery, allowing buyers to support new renewable capacity while managing energy cost exposure, Peshawaria said.

She said the Indian vPPA market was still nascent but evolving rapidly, driven by multinationals seeking to replicate procurement structures from their home markets in Europe and the US.

India's installed renewable capacity accounts for nearly 50% of total capacity, but actual generation from renewables represents only about 20% of the mix -- a structural gap contributing to curtailment challenges and reinforcing the case for instruments such as vPPAs that support new capacity addition rather than recycling existing generation into certificates, according to panelists.

The concentration of redemptions in the December-to-March window leaves prices under pressure for much of the year, panelists said, underscoring the need for more programmatic, year-round procurement to stabilize the market.