Average Power Price in RTM Lowers to Rs 2.22 per Unit in June

The average spot power price in the RTM was at Rs 2.22 per unit in June, which is lower than Rs 2.35 per unit in the day-ahead market at the IEX.

The average spot power price in the real-time market (RTM) in its first month of operation of June was at Rs 2.22 per unit, which is lower than Rs 2.35 per unit in the day-ahead market at the Indian Energy Exchange.

The RTM allows consumers to purchase electricity at the exchange just one hour before delivery while in the day-ahead market (DAM), power is bought for supply the next day.

IEX launched the real-time market on May 31, 2020, for the delivery of power from June. In a statement, the firm said that RTM has accomplished a volume of 515.46 MU (million units) in June 2020. According to the statement, RTM saw substantial sell-side liquidity at 1,810 MU – 2.4 times of the buy volumes at 742 MU-and competitive price discovery.

Consequently, the average market clearing price was at Rs 2.22 per unit, lower than the DAM average price for June, at Rs 2.35 per unit, it added. The attractive prices enabled great savings and good financial liquidity for the utilities as well as the open-access consumers.

The RTM market not only facilitated unrequisitioned surplus generation capacity find buyers but also facilitated generators to purchase power to fulfil obligations created due to outages, it said.

Setting a new precedent, two of IEX clients – Raipur Power and Raigarh Energy Generation, became the first generators to have bought electricity to meet their commitment, it stated.

“The milestone of 515.46 MU volume in the first month is really an impressive accomplishment and has been possible due to the robust fundamental value proposition of this new market segment.

“The technology enablement, capacity building and other customer-centric solutions that we provided supported the market to a great start and indeed enabled IEX to reach this high point in a span of just a month,” said Rohit Bajaj, Head – Business Development and Senior Vice President at IEX.

K V N Chakradhar Babu, IAS, Andhra Pradesh Southern Power Distribution Company said RTM is a boon to the cashflow constrained discoms to access quality power at the most economical prices. At the same time, meeting the exigent demand, block-wise by the grid operator has become painless, he added.

Satish Chavan, Director Commercial, Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company said: “The RTM was the necessity of the distribution companies. With the increasing purchase of infirm renewable energy to meet RPO (renewable purchase obligation) targets given by the regulator, I think this need is fulfilled by providing RTM to discoms to meet the variation in load generation balance with optimum cost.”

The new market segment was operationalised on the IEX platform at 10:45 pm on May 31 for delivery from 12:00 am on June 1.

IEX’s RTM provides utilities avenues to meet 24×7 power supply aspirations with 48 auction windows during the day, with delivery at 1-hour notice.

The market has been launched with a vision to enable market participants to meet demand variations of electricity in shorter windows, support large-scale renewable energy integration, maximise grid security and deepen the power market in the country.