The electricity market at the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) witnessed a total trade of 4,790 MU (million units or million kwh) in June 2020 recording a 5 per cent year-on-year increase. This was despite the national peak demand registering a 10 per cent year-on-year decline during the month.
Increased economic activity and easing of the lockdown restrictions in most parts of the country coupled with peaking summers contributed to national peak demand at 165 GW and energy consumed at 107 BU, according to data released by NLDC.
One-Nation, One-Price prevailed for all 30 days during June 2020.
The Day-Ahead Market (DAM) traded 4,174 MU and witnessed high sell side liquidity in the month, with total sell bids at 10,164 MU being close to 1.5-times the buy bids at 4,661 MU.
The average market clearing price during the month was at Rs.2.35 per unit registered a whopping 29 per cent YoY decline over a price of Rs.3.32 in June 2019.
The increased availability of power and attractive prices in the market ensured that the industries as well as the distribution utilities continue to have access to lower electricity prices leading to greater savings as well as assisting them in building the much needed financial liquidity which is critical at this hour. In fact, the open access volume in June witnessed 30 per cent month-over-month increase.
One-Nation, One-Price prevailed for all 30 days during the month.
Real Time Market
The real-time market has received an overwhelming response from the participants and in its first month. The market attracted trade volume of 515.5 MU comprising over 10 per cent of the total volume traded on IEX.
A total of 237 customers participated in the new market segment during the first month with single day highest volume of 36.09 MU on June 30, 2020. The average monthly market clearing price stood at Rs 2.22 per unit for RTM alone.
The attractive prices enabled the utilities in meeting efficient demand management at 1-hour notice, renewable integration, utilisation of generation capacity, facilitating generation companies to purchase power as well as the grid security.
REC Market
The Renewable Energy Cetificate (REC) Trading Session at IEX on June 24, 2020 saw a total trade of 2.29 lakh RECs comprising 1,62,873 non-solar and 66,815 solar RECs.
The reduction in cleared volume both on monthly and yearly basis was clearly linked to the impending removal of floor price and lowering forbearance price to be effective from July 1, 2020, as per the recent regulations notified by CERC. For similar reasons, the market saw higher sell side liquidity with sell bid being 3.7-times of the buy bids.
The price for Solar RECs, at Rs. 1000 per REC, decreased 50 per cent from Rs. 2,000 in May 2020 and that for non-solar RECs issued after April 1, 2017, was Rs. 1,000 per REC.
