Real-time power market expected to start from June 1: IEX

Real-time power market is expected to start from June 1 without any bearing of COVID-19 on it, an official of the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) said. The real-time power market (RPM) enables consumers, including distribution companies (discoms) and captive users, to buy power on exchanges just an hour before delivery.

"So real-time market we expect to start from June 1...we have been regularly in touch with all these distribution companies and most of them are fully prepared, they are geared up for participation in real-time market and we do not see any impact on account of COVID-19 as of now," said Rohit Bajaj, Head Business Development, IEX during an earnings conference call held on May 15. Bajaj was responding to a question on launch of real-time market on June 1 amid the nationwide lockdown to contain COVID-19.

The government had imposed lockdown on March 25, which has been extended thrice, albeit with relaxations. Earlier in March, power regulator CERC had decided to defer the implementation of real-time power market till June 1 amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Initially, the real-time market was scheduled to start from April 1 this year. Bajaj told investors and analysts that IEX recently conducted a webinar on real-time market, and there was huge participation with most of the states participating.

He further said, "We did mock (trial) also sometime back and today all of them have installed our software on their platform and they are doing it, that is one part. Second is we are also helping them in creating capacity to ensure that they are in a position to optimally utilize this new platform." According to the earnings call transcript, IEX had created a tool which it shared with couple of discoms. In next one week time (from May 15), IEX was to reach out to all discoms.

"This is one of the game changing market models that they are looking at and particularly all those states where there is high renewable, they are also very excited about it because this gives them another opportunity to address the variability in generation that they see, which is a great problem for them on account of high variable charges in their particular state," Bajaj said. "So I would not say everybody is ready, but I think 85 per cent of the states are directly dealing with us and creating capacity to participate on this platform immediately," he added.

IEX exuded confidence that it is operationally and technologically completely ready for real-time power market launch on June 1. Currently, consumers, including discoms and captive users, can buy power a day prior in the Day Ahead Market (DAM) on the power exchanges where trading is done for two hours daily from 10 am to 12 noon.

The main purpose of introducing real-time power market is to deal with renewables interference and better portfolio management by power general companies (gencos), discoms and other consumers. With more and more renewable energy capacity being added to power grids, there would be need for sudden ramp-up and downsizing of supply.

Consumers can plan their energy supplies in a better way and gencos would be able to increase or decrease their output accordingly. Under the new system, there will be 48 sessions of 30 minutes each in a day. It means that trading of electricity would be done round the clock.

After closing of the session, power delivery can be scheduled at an interval of one hour. Thus, if a consumer buys power in the 1:30 pm-2 pm session, the electricity supply can be scheduled as early as 3 pm on the same day.

It was also revealed in the call that peak electricity demand recovered a bit in the first 12 days of May from a negative 25 per cent to negative 15 per cent. PTI KKS RVK.

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