Power trade jumps 15% at IEX in Mar amid rising mercury level

With temperature rising, the spot power market at IEX saw a 15 per cent jump in electricity trade in March but average rate remained low at Rs 2.56 a unit.

As many as 3,364 million units (MU) changed hands in March compared to 2,927 MU traded in February.

"On a daily average basis, over 109 MUs were traded, up from 105 MUs in the previous month," the power trading platform said in a statement here.

With rising temperature and earlier than usual arrival of summer, the market saw average daily purchase bids of 139 MU, 10 per cent increase over February, while the sell bids were 200 MU.
 

"The market, however, continued to see low price during the month. The average Market Clearing Price (MCP) for the month was Rs 2.56 per unit, almost at par with price of Rs 2.54 per unit in February," it said.

The average Area Clearing Price (ACP), the price at which settlement takes place, varied from Rs 1.53 per unit to Rs 4.47 per unit across the bid areas.

"The import of power to Southern region was congested throughout the month; consequently almost 5 million units were curtailed on daily average basis, almost 5 times of daily average curtailment of 1 MU in February.The Northern import was congested by 26 per cent and Southern import was congested by 50 per cent," it said.

Overall, about 154 MU were curtailed due to inter-state transmission congestion.

IEX said in 2016-17 fiscal, spot power market remained vibrant and registered trade of 39.8 billion units (BU), about 17 per cent increase over 34 BU traded in the previous fiscal.

The average MCP was Rs 2.41 per unit, 12 per cent less than MCP of Rs 2.73 per unit in FY2015-16.

With reinforcement and augmentation of inter-state transmission network, volume loss due to congestion reduced to 1.5 BU from 2.1 BU in FY16.