Amid increased consumption in India, IEX’s electricity volume up 21%

As the electricity consumption in India jumped in October, the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) on Monday reported an increase of 21 per cent in its electricity volume to 9,260 million units (MU). In a regulatory filing, the company said that its day-ahead market (DAM) jumped 8.3 per cent to 4,742 MU in October as compared to 4,379 MU in the same month last year.


According to the data for October published by Grid Controller of India Limited (GRID-India), the country’s energy consumption jumped 22 per cent to 139 billion units (BU) as compared to that in 2022. This was due to below-average rainfall in October and a lower base last year.


“This upsurge in power demand prompted distribution companies (Discoms) to actively purchase power on the exchange to meet the increased demand, thereby leading to a significant increase in trade volumes on IEX,” the company said.


The increase in demand also led to a 68 per cent rise in DAM prices to Rs 6.45 per unit.


The green day-ahead market (G-DAM) achieved 180.80 MU volume during the month, with a weighted average price of Rs 6.37 per unit. The segment saw participation from 194 market participants during the month.


The green term-ahead market (G-TAM) achieved 7.23 MU volume in October, with an average monthly price of non-solar at Rs 8.40/unit.


The real-time electricity market (RTM) volume increased to 2,402 MU in October from 2,265 MU in October 2022, registering an increase of 6.1 per cent.


“The RTM segment enables distribution utilities and industries with greater flexibility and efficient optimisation of portfolios by balancing their power demand-supply on a real-time basis,” the company said.


The day-ahead contingency and term-ahead market (TAM), consisting of contingency, daily, weekly and monthly contracts up to three months, traded 1,911 MU during October, higher by 207.6 per cent on a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis.


As of 10:05 am on Monday, IEX’s shares were trading 4 per cent in the green at Rs 132.8 apiece on BSE.