The Hindu Business Line : Energy Exchange lowers minimum trading limit to 1 MW

New Delhi, Nov. 7 In a bid to bring smaller players on the electricity trading platform, the country’s first power bourse — Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) — has lowered the minimum tradable volume under the day-ahead market to 1 mega watt (MW), from the earlier limit of 10 MW.

The lowering of the trading limit has been done in response to feelers from smaller players such as captive generators and sugar cooperatives wanting to sell surplus power from their cogeneration plants on the exchange, besides enabling small industrial units to buy on the platform.

“Initially, we had fixed the minimum contract size at 10 MW because the exchange had just started out and the system was not equipped to handle a large number of contracts. We had since been getting feelers from smaller players who wanted to use the trading platform… This step (lowering contract volume) will enable captive units and co-generation plants to participate on the Exchange,” the IEX Managing Director and CEO, Mr Jayant Deo, told Business Line.

He said the exchange had got the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission’s nod for lowering the limit recently and that trading in 1MW contracts commenced on October 27.

Cogeneration plants

“Private sugar mills operating cogeneration plants have shown interest in selling their surpluses in the Exchange, with the lowering of the limit. Besides, captive players are also interested… Besides, units in industrial zones such as Pune could buy power on the Exchange by forming a cluster, instead of relying on DG sets to tide over power cuts. The lowering of the contract size opens up a whole lot of avenues for smaller players,” Mr Deo said.

IEX went live on June 27 and has since then clocked the highest daily trade volume of 21 million units valued at over Rs 14 crore on November 1.

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