New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) Shares of Indian Energy Exchange Ltd (IEX) slipped over 7 per cent on Monday after the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) released a draft notification on power market norms that included a framework for market coupling.

The regulator invited public comments on the move to reintroduce market coupling — a mechanism that would create a single, uniform price for electricity across trading platforms.

If implemented, the move is likely to hit IEX’s market share and dominance in the power segment. IEX shares were trading at Rs 125.59 apiece, down Rs 10.22, or 7.53 per cent.

On July 23, 2025, CERC had issued directions to implement market coupling, following which the IEX shares slumped 30 per cent the following day.

According to the previous CERC order, Grid-India would aggregate energy prices across all power trading platforms and publish a single unified price for day-ahead markets.

Currently, electricity trading occurs on three exchanges — IEX, Power Exchange of India and Hindustan Power Exchange of India — with IEX holding about 85 per cent of overall market share and a near‑total presence in the day‑ahead and real‑time markets.

If market coupling is implemented, a single market-clearing price will apply across all exchanges. Buyers and sellers do not have to place bids independently on each exchange, resulting in separate price discovery across the three platforms.

Under the new mechanism, exchanges will gather bids and forward them to the designated agency which will estimate the common price.

Consequently, market coupling removes the dominant exchange- advantage of IEX, with bidders having little incentive to prefer IEX over the other platforms. Since IEX earns most of its revenue from high-volume trading in the Day-Ahead Market and Real-Time Market segments, the market coupling could affect its position and profitability, analysts said.

–IANS

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