Unseasonal rains and surplus supply cause power price crash

RECENT RAINS ALSO BOOSTED HYDROPOWER GENERATION, PUTTING DOWNWARD PRESSURE ON POWER PRICES

- Rituraj Baruah

NEW DELHI: Power prices in the Real-Time Market (RTM) on the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) hit record lows on Sunday, driven by a combination of unseasonal rains, thunderstorms that reduced demand, and a surge in electricity supply.

On Sunday, RTM prices hovered around zero following overnight showers and thunderstorms in and around the Delhi-NCR region. On Thursday, the price for a single RTM block had dropped to an all-time low of 2 paise per unit before recovering. On a year-on-year basis, average RTM power prices have declined 22% to ₹3.69 per unit due to lower electricity consumption.