Volumes of electricity being traded in the exchanges dipped even as there was not much improvement in the power generation scenario.
Spot power prices of electricity traded in the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) dropped significantly after Diwali, falling even below Rs 3 per unit, after daily average prices hovered in the Rs 5-5.45-per-unit range during the week of the festival of lights. The fall in spot prices, as well as electricity volumes traded, is a break from the trend in the recent past when state-owned power distribution companies (discoms) were buying more power from the short-term market in the wake of shortage of electricity generation from wind, hydro and nuclear units. According to sources, the states which curtailed buying power from IEX after Diwali include West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Maharashtra. The main power generators which were selling power at IEX were Teesta Urja, Jindal Power, Telangana state power utilities and Thermal Powertech — a joint venture (JV) between business units of Gayatri Projects and SembCorp Industries.
Volumes of electricity being traded in the exchanges dipped even as there was not much improvement in the power generation scenario. More than 75,000 MW of power generating capacity was under outage on Sunday when only 94.5 MU were traded in the exchange. The Sunday outage capacity is about 4,000 MW more than October 15, when more than 173 million units (MU) of electricity was traded in the power bourse — the highest in October yet.
Experts have attributed the dip in spot power trading to the onset of the change in season, which has lowered the demand for power. Demand during peak hours in the country was 1,45,071 MW on Sunday. The figure was 1,58,947 MW on October 7, the day for which the average price of power at IEX was as high as Rs 5.62 per unit. Peak demand on October 1 was 1,451071 MW.
Average spot price of electricity in August an September was Rs 3.13 per unit and Rs 4.1 per unit respectively, which represented annual rises of 44% and 68%, respectively.
