Mumbai, July 14 (IANS) The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), which launched the Monthly Electricity Futures (ELECMBL) contracts, said on Monday that it has received healthy participation.

The move can be seen as a significant step forward in the development of India’s electricity derivatives market. According to NSE’s data, 6,863 contracts traded during the market hours, representing a value of Rs 149.81 crore.

The first trade opened at Rs 4,430/MWh and settled at Rs 4,364/MWh. Meanwhile, its intraday high and lows stood at Rs 4,430/MWh and Rs 4,301/MWh, respectively.

The kind of interest that the newly-launched derivatives got, reflected healthy participation across participants, including power generators, discoms, large industrial consumers, and market intermediaries, NSE said.

The exchange said the introduction of electricity futures derivatives will give participants a clear, risk-managed platform to support long-term power planning, hedge against volatility in electricity prices, and support India’s larger energy transition objectives.

NSE is the biggest derivatives exchange in the world by trading volume (contracts), as per the Futures Industry Association (FIA) data for the year 2024.

Based on data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the company started operations in 1994 and has been the biggest stock exchange in India in terms of total and average daily turnover for equity shares every year since 1995.

Trading, clearing members, and listed companies are subject to the exchange’s and SEBI’s rules and regulations, NSE said.

It is ranked second in the world in the equity segment by number of trades (electronic order book) in 2024, as per the statistics maintained by the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE).

Meanwhile, the Indian stock market ended the first trading session of the week in negative territory, amid selling in IT stocks and fresh global trade tensions over US tariffs. Sensex closed at 82,253.46, down 247.01 points or 0.30 per cent against last session’s closing of 82,500.47.

–IANS

aps/na