RK Singh Launches GTAM; Will Benefit Buyers of Renewable Energy

As a first step towards greening the Indian short term power market, RK Singh has launched pan-India Green Term Ahead Market (GTAM) in electricity.

As a first step towards greening the Indian short term power market, Union Minister of State (IC) Power and New & Renewable Energy, RK Singh has launched pan-India Green Term Ahead Market (GTAM) in electricity through video conference on September 1, 2020.

Speaking at the launch Singh said, “the introduction of GTAM platform would lessen the burden on RE-rich States and incentivise them to develop RE capacity beyond their own RPO. This would promote RE merchant capacity addition and help in achieving RE capacity addition targets of the country.” He further added that GTAM platform will lead to an increase in the number of participants in the renewable energy sector. It will benefit buyers of RE through competitive prices and transparent and flexible procurement. It will also benefit RE sellers by providing access to pan-India market.

The release by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) also stated that the Government of India’s target of 175 GW RE capacity by 2022 is driving accelerated renewable penetration pan-India. Green Term Ahead Market contracts will allow additional avenues to the RE generators for the sale of renewable energy; enable Obligated entities to procure renewable power at competitive prices to meet their Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO), and provide a platform to environmentally conscious open access consumers and utilities to buy green power.

Key features of GTAM:

1. Transactions through GTAM will be bilateral in nature with clear identification of corresponding buyers and sellers, there will not be any difficulty in accounting for RPO.

2. GTAM contracts will be segregated into Solar RPO & Non-Solar RPO as RPO targets are also segregated.

3. Further, within the two segments, GTAM contracts will have Green Intraday, Day Ahead Contingency, Daily and Weekly Contracts

a. Green Intraday Contract & Day Ahead Contingency Contract – Bidding will take place on a 15-minute time-block wise MW basis.

b. Daily & Weekly Contracts – Bidding will take place on an MWh basis. Both buyers and sellers can submit the bid, however, the seller will provide a profile in terms of a 15-minute time block wise quantity (MW) along with the price (Rs/MWh). After the contract gets executed scheduling will take place as per the profile. In the case of multiple buyers, the profile will get allocated on a pro-rata basis.

4. Price discovery will take place on a continuous basis i.e. price time priority basis. Subsequently, looking at the market conditions open auction can be introduced for daily & weekly contracts.

5. Energy scheduled through the GTAM contract shall be considered as deemed RPO compliance of the buyer.

Singh also mentioned that other products to be introduced in the power market for the promotion of renewable energy are in the pipeline and would be introduced soon.