Electricity prices on bourse slide in January, says IEX

Price of electricity sold on Indian Energy Exchange declined in January, mainly as congestion in transmission network impacted supply of power to Southern states.
In the day-ahead spot market for electricity, the average market clearing price declined to Rs 3.14 per kWh last month compared to Rs 3.22 per kWh recorded in December 2013.
IEX is the country's leading power exchange.
"Congestion on the transmission network, especially in context of importing power into Southern States as well as between the S1 (Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) and S2 (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) bid areas was severe across the month of January.

"With almost no power flow between S1 and S2, price in the S2 bid area was discovered for just one day across the entire month thus impacting the ability of the southern customers to source power from the exchange in an adverse way," the bourse said in a statement today.
About 545 million units of electricity was lost due to the congestion.

Notwithstanding severe congestion, 2,347 MUs were traded in the spot market in January, equivalent to the volume traded in the previous month.
"This was largely due to intra-regional trade where the need for inter-state transmission corridor was obviated," the statement said.

January saw total purchase bids of 3,848 MUs, lower than sell bids for 4,137 MUs.