New Delhi: Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) on Friday reported an over four percent decline in its consolidated net profit to Rs 77.21 crore in the December quarter. The consolidated net profit of the company stood at Rs 80.73 crore in the year-ago period, according to a regulatory filing. Total income also fell to Rs 117.34 crore in the October-December quarter from Rs 130.77 crore in the corresponding period a year ago.
An IEX statement said that in the third quarter of 2022-23, it achieved electricity trade volumes of 23 BU (billion units) which is a growth of nine percent quarter-on-quarter. However, the electricity trade volumes declined by two percent in the December quarter on year-on-year basis. The electricity trade volume was 21.2 BU in July-September 2022 and 23.5 BU in October-December 2021.
The trade volumes were impacted largely due to supply-side constraints, led by high prices of e-auction coal.
"REC (renewable energy certificates) volumes at 1.2 BU during the third quarter of FY2022-23 witnessed a de-growth of 68 percent on a y-o-y basis as the year-ago period had exceptionally high REC volumes to fulfil the pent-up demand caused by stay on REC trading by APTEL for a period of 16 months," it stated.
In the quarter, the price of e-auction coal continued to be high. While the quarterly average price premium declined from 293 percent in the second quarter of FY2023 to 242 percent in the third, it was considerably higher as compared to 35 percent for the special forward e-auction price for the power sector in FY2022. As a result of this, input cost for gencos continued to be high.
"Continuing high spot e-auction coal prices led to the average clearing price in the Day-ahead market at Rs 4.56 in Q3 FY2023, while lower from Rs 5.40 in the previous quarter, but still high to provide optimisation potential for discoms and open access consumers," it stated.
Improving coal inventory and further reduction in e-auction coal prices are expected to result in a decline in power prices on the Exchange and provide further cost optimisation opportunities to discoms and open access consumers. This is expected to result in higher volumes on the Exchange.
On the Gas market front, IGX traded a total volume of 24.42 million MMBtu during the December quarter, which was a 568 percent YoY increase. This growth was largely on the back of participation from major domestic gas producers and an increase in the number of participants.
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