IEX shares tank ahead of power minister meeting stakeholders on market coupling: Exclusive

The much-awaited market coupling of power exchanges may witness some development as government sources have told CNBC-TV18, that Power Minister Manohar Lal may conduct consultations with stakeholders on the issue to apprise them about the benefits of market coupling.

Sources told CNBC-TV18 that whenever market coupling takes place, it will happen through a broad bid, and not any internal bid. Market coupling means aggregation and match of buy and sell bids by power exchanges for a uniform price discovery, and will imply a single price for electricity to be traded at any point through the power exchanges.

On February 21 this year, Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal had indicated that the Ministry and the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) are reviewing the Grid Controller of India’s report on market coupling.
A government official had told CNBC-TV18 on September 25 last year, that market coupling of power exchanges was on the cards. While the official had said that market coupling will eventually happen, he had refused to ascribe any timeline for the implementation.

In February 2024, a document by the CERC had stressed on a need for more evidence-based results before implementation of market coupling. The document had said that the shadow pilot will be implemented for four months after the development of necessary software by the Grid Controller of India, which was then asked to complete its pilot study on time after examining all technical aspects.

Shares of IEX have seen a sharp fall from the highs of the day, currently 9.3% lower at ₹190.48.