MUMBAI: India's green transition is sparking a scramble in its carbon market, as companies snap up renewable energy certificates to meet government mandates or internal goals. While prices of these tradeable certificates have surged as the financial year draws to a close, rising supply has also prevented a runaway spike.
Producers of renewable power accrue renewable energy certificates (RECs), which emission-heavy sectors purchase from them. While large domestic companies buy RECs to meet their renewable consumption obligations, multinational corporations operating in India buy International Renewable Energy Certificates (I-RECs) to achieve voluntary emission goals. Indian units of MNCs from the US, Europe, Japan and South Korea are the typical buyers of I-RECs.
While prices of I-RECs have increased from a bottom of ₹10-20 per megawatt-hour to ₹40-50, they remain below the ₹60-70 levels seen a year ago, said Aditya Malpani, senior director and regional business development head for west at Ampin Energy Transition, a renewable energy company that also trades I-RECs.
Prices of RECs have remained steady around ₹350, as abundant supply has prevented a price increase despite high demand from industries and utilities looking to meet their renewable consumption obligations (RCOs) for FY26.
“This increase happens generally at this time of year because corporates want to meet the 31 March target of sustainability,” Malpani said. “Both RECs and IRECs see an increase in demand at this point.”
RECs are domestic instruments issued by the National Load Despatch Centre, typically used by state discoms and industrial power users to meet RCO targets. These entities need to increase their renewable energy consumption from about 30% of total in FY25 to 43.33% by FY30. RECs are costlier since they are purchased to meet the mandate, while purchase of globally recognized I-RECs are voluntary.
“Core industrial sectors such as chemicals, which are responsible for more than 50% of the industrial power demand, have not really caught up on their renewable power purchase obligations. They have to now meet their obligations by purchasing RECs,” Kartikeya Sharma, co-founder and chief business officer at independent power producer Sunsure, said at an industry event on Thursday.
“Over the last two quarters, in fact, I am actually surprised by the number of inquiries for (RECs),” he said.
Meanwhile, India's renewable power capacity has shot up over the past decade, spewing out a flood of renewable certificates. Capacity more than tripled in a decade, rising from 76 GW and accounting for about a fourth of India’s total installed power generation capacity, to 254 GW as of December 2025, accounting for more than half of the total capacity.
The imbalance between the supply and demand of RECs is apparent from the data released by India Energy Exchange. In 2025, the exchange received just about 28 million buy bids for RECs compared to nearly 64 million sell bids. Prices during the year ranged between ₹325-370.