The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has issued suo-moto directions to the power exchanges to extend the price cap of Rs 12 per unit across all market segments traded on the power exchanges until further orders.
The CERC had introduced the price ceiling on power exchanges in April 2022, in light of desperate buying by state electricity companies to meet surging summer demand. The order was extended twice and was to expire on December 31, 2022. Now, the CERC has directed the power exchanges to continue operating their software in such a way that members can quote price in the range of Rs 0-12 per kWh in day ahead market (DAM) (including green DAM (GDAM)), real-time market (RTM), intra-day, day ahead contingency, and term ahead market (TAM) (including green TAM (GTAM)) contracts, until further orders. It is observed that both energy requirement and peak demand remained higher in 2022-23 and the trend is likely to continue in the coming months mainly due to lighting and heating load and increase in industrial activity.