Power Minister launches pan-India real time market in electricity

Union Power Minister RK Singh launched pan-India real time market in electricity through video conference on Wednesday.

This has placed the Indian electricity market amongst a league of few electricity markets in the world, which have real time market.

"Minister of State (IC) Power and New and Renewable Energy and Minister of State (Skill Development and Entrepreneurship), RK Singh launched pan-India real time market in electricity through video conference in New Delhi, on June 3, 2020," Power Ministry said in a statement.

The minister highlighted that real-time market is an orgsed market platform to enable the buyers and sellers pan-India to meet their energy requirement closer to real-time of operation.

"Introduction of real time market will bring required flexibility in the market to provide real-time balance while ensuring optimal utilisation of the available surplus capacity in the system. It will also help manage diversity in the demand pattern in the country with an orgzed market at the national level," the ministry said.

Real time market would be for every 30 minutes in a day based on double-sided closed auction with a uniform price.

The concept of "Gate Closure" has been introduced for bringing in the desired firmness in schedules during the hours of market operation. Buyers/sellers shall have the option of placing buy/sell bids for each 15-minute time block. The proposed real-time market would provide an alternate mechsm for discoms to access a larger market at a competitive price.

On the other hand, generators would also benefit by participating in the real-time market with their un-requisitioned capacity. A mechsm has been provided for generators having a long-term contract and participating in this market to share the net gains with the discoms.

National Load Despatch Centre-POSOCO is facilitating necessary automation in coordination with power exchanges to ensure faster transactions and settlements in the real time market framework.

( With inputs from ANI )