The government of India recently launched a pan-India real-time electricity market. This groundbreaking initiative is anticipated to facilitate buyers and sellers across India in meeting their energy requirements closer to the actual operation time. A streamlined bidding process, accelerated scheduling, and explicit procedures will enable participants to harness the resources available throughout the all India grid, thereby promoting competition.
About the Real-Time Electricity Market
The real-time electricity market is a structured marketplace that provides the requisite flexibility to maintain real-time balance while optimizing the use of surplus capacity within the system. The real-time market will operate for 30 minutes every day. During this period, buyers and sellers will be able to place bids to buy or sell electricity for every 15-minute block. This market aims to manage the diverse demand patterns in the country at a national level.
Benefits of the Real-Time Electricity Market
This newly launched marketplace holds several advantages for different stakeholders.
Increase in Renewable Energy Penetration
With India’s government setting an ambitious target of attaining 175 GW renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2022, the real-time market plays a crucial role in facilitating this extensive renewable penetration across the country. It will help overcome grid management issues and integrate a larger quantity of renewable energy resources into the grid.
Advantages for Discoms
Discoms are set gain from this fresh mechanism which will provide them access to larger markets at competitive prices. The real-time market will also aid in managing their power purchase portfolio more optimally, thereby leading to power purchase cost optimization.
Benefits for Consumers
The real-time market guarantees power supply reliability for consumers as any last-minute power requirement can be quickly met. The old practice of managing the grid by load shedding due to last-minute changes will be avoided, which in turn will result in power purchase cost optimization.
Way Forward
The real-time market presents a win-win situation for all stakeholders involved. It offers opportunities for generators to sell their surpluses and better manage the variability of RE generation. Furthermore, it ensures better utilization of transmission systems while also providing an opportunity for Discoms to buy or sell power. Ultimately, consumers benefit from a reliable power supply. The launch of this real-time electricity market marks a significant reform in the power sector after the announcement of plans for the privatisation of all electricity distribution companies in the union territories.