India's first power exchange begins operations

New Delhi, Jun 27 (UNI) Indian Energy Exchange Ltd (IEX), the country's first-ever power exchange, today commenced operations.

The bourse will provide competitive markets for sale of power with necessary payment security.

The need for a power exchange has been felt for quite some time by the buyers and sellers to better meet the demand and supply of power at the most appropriate price at national level.

IEX, which had got approval from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) on August 31 last year for setting up the power exchange, today received bids for 13,176 Mwh of power and the matched power was cleared at Market Clearing prices between Rs 6.46/kwh and Rs 8.01/kwh for the different hours of the market, a statement said.

The power will now be scheduled on June 28, as IEX is trading day ahead power currently.

''The electricity price discovery on the IEX physical market will provide a transparent, credible and secure reference price for other physical market trades, of the entire power sector,'' IEX MD-cum-CEO Jayant Deo said.

Over 50 members and users have been identified for participation in phase I.

Major members and clients who participated today were from Maharashtra, Tripura, West Bengal, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

IEX has been promoted by Financial Technologies (India) Ltd and PTC India Ltd, and its key stakeholders include Adani Enterprises, Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), Lanco Infratech, Reliance Energy, Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), and Tata Power Company.

IEX will operate initially on a day-ahead market based on closed auction, double-side bidding and clearing at uniform price. It proposes to offer other products in the second phase of operations.

The Exchange will aid the buyers and the sellers by bringing power industry participants together to buy and sell electricity in an auction based system, which will create a national level price discovery.

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