Central government-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has earned over ₹100 billion (~$1.22 billion) in revenues from trading renewable power in the financial year (FY) 2022-23, the highest ever since its inception.

The company plays a central role in several government programs that traded over 35 billion renewable energy units in the fiscal year ending March 31. It represented a 59% year-over-year jump in its power trading volume.

SECI’s primary revenue stream is the ₹0.07 (~0.00085)/kWh trading fees it levies on electricity sold to mostly state government-run distribution companies (DISCOMs). As an intermediary procurer, the company enters in to back-to-back power purchase agreements with developers, and the DISCOMs.

The agency is likely to be the intermediary procurer for the government’s proposed price pooling mechanism for solar power.

Under the proposal, SECI would also be allowed to sell any unsold power to open access consumers at a price that is at least equal to the uniform renewable energy tariff.

This could hint at SECI’s entry into the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment, as the agency could don the role of both intermediary and implementing agency for central pooling.

The Ministry of Power amended the Electricity Rules to implement a uniform renewable energy tariff for the central pool of projects connected to interstate transmission systems.

Overall, the uniform renewable energy tariff and the involvement of SECI are expected to catalyze the wind sector, upgrade transmission infrastructure, and facilitate the development of more renewable energy ISTS projects.

While SECI’s entry into C&I domain could benefit the consumers with lower tariffs and easier access to round-the-clock RTC power owing to SECI’s vast resources, the private developers are somewhat concerned that the market for their operations will shrink.

During a panel discussion at Mercom India’s C&I Clean Energy Meet in Ahmedabad, Ajay Kumar Sinha, Additional General Manager of SECI, said that SECI had discussions with large businesses to assess the C&I market.

Sinha will be one of the speakers in the upcoming Mercom India Renewables Summit 2023, an exclusive two-day clean energy event to be hosted in New Delhi on April 26 and April 27.

He will discuss the long-duration energy storage market in India and the available choices for the most efficient and cost-effective commercial technologies in the session titled ‘Role of Energy Storage in Making Renewables Mainstream,’ held on April 26.