Covid disruption pushes up power trade on exchanges, up 45 pc in Sep

In the month of September, when overall peak demand in the country rose by 2 per cent over the same month last year and energy consumption recorded a 4.6 per cent increase, the electricity market at country's largest power exchange - the Indian Energy Exchange - traded 5,675 MU of power, witnessing a significant 45 per cent increase over the volume traded in September 2019.

What's more, consumers of short-term power found exchanges viable media to trade in power as the average price of electricity there during September remained 3 per cent lower YoY at Rs 2.69 per unit.

Most of the trading at this price was in the day-ahead market at 4,781 MU.

The prices made electricity procurement from the exchange an attractive proposition for both distribution utilities and industries, yielding significant financial savings, IEX said in a statement highlighting details of the power market during the month.

The day-ahead market saw adequate availability of power with high sell side liquidity. The total sell bids at 9,669 MU were twice of the cleared volumes.

The distribution utilities from southern, western and northern states continued to leverage the exchange market to meet their short-term electricity requirements as well as for replacement of costlier power in order to optimise their overall cost of power procurement.

Moreover, as the Covid restrictions ease, industries have been procuring power at attractive prices which has been facilitating revival of industrial growth.

'One Nation One Price' prevailed during all 30 days during the month meaning anyone in any part of the country could get power at the same price as any other consumer in the country.

The trade in the term-ahead market stood at 107 MU for the month.

The recently-started real-time electricity market also registered a total trade of 704 MU during September 2020. The market saw 41.76 MU as the highest volume being traded on a single day on September 2.

During the month, the sell bids were at 2,159 MU and the buy bids were at 924 MU. With the sell side at nearly 2.3 times the buy side, the average market discovered at Rs 2.52 per unit was attractive for buyers.

The trading in the green term-ahead market commenced on August 21 at the Exchange. Presently, the market offers trade in intra-day and day-ahead contracts in both solar and non-solar segments. The market has received an overwhelming response since launch and has registered volume of 82.92 MU during September 2020.

The market saw participation from 20 participants during the month and the highest single day participation of 15 was recorded on September 30. The key participants included distribution utilities such as CESC, DVC, Bihar, Haryana, DNH, Daman & Diu, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana.