The Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) is an electronic power trading marketplace, which is a type of institution that facilitates the trade of energy contracts and is regulated by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). The concept of a power exchange in India originated around 2005, and the IEX began its operations on June 27, 2008, to pioneer the development of power trading and bridge the demand-supply gap in the Indian power market. It solved the problem of opaque and inefficient power procurement by providing an automated platform for better price discovery and increased transparency.
The mechanism involves participants, such as State Electricity Boards, power producers, and large industrial consumers, buying and selling energy through a double-sided closed auction process. Key products traded include the Day-Ahead Market (DAM), where physical electricity is traded for delivery in 15-minute blocks for the next day, and the Real-Time Market (RTM), introduced on June 1, 2020, for delivery within an hour. The IEX also facilitates the trade of environmental attributes through Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Energy Saving Certificates (ESCerts), the latter being tradable under the Perform-Achieve-Trade (PAT) Scheme launched in 2012 by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency.
The IEX connects to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), which regulates it, and the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC), which manages the grid. It is one of the two operational power exchanges in India, alongside Power Exchange India Limited (PXIL). A significant recent change involves the proposed implementation of market coupling, which aims to unify price discovery across all power exchanges. The CERC released a draft framework in April 2026 proposing that Grid India will act as the Market Coupling Operator (MCO), aggregating bids from all exchanges to determine a uniform market clearing price, which would replace the current system where IEX determines the price for its trades. This change, which follows earlier directions from July 23, 2025, and the dismissal of an IEX petition by the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL), is slated to begin with the Day-Ahead Market (DAM) segment.