CERC Draft Pushes "One Nation, One Grid, One Price" Through Market Coupling

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has placed in the public domain its Power Market (Draft Second Amendment) Regulations, 2026, which aim to roll out market coupling across India's power exchanges. Stakeholder comments are open until 16 May 2026.

Today, exchanges such as IEX, PXIL and HPX run their own day-ahead and real-time auctions, which can produce slightly different clearing prices for the same time block. Market coupling is a mechanism in which a single operator pools all bids from every exchange, runs one combined matching engine, and discovers a uniform clearing price. The draft proposes Grid Controller of India Limited (Grid India) as this Market Coupling Operator.

The reform is being marketed under the slogan "One Nation, One Grid, One Price," echoing the spirit of earlier integrations such as the unified national grid frequency. CERC has indicated that the rollout will be phased — beginning with the Day-Ahead Market (DAM) and Real-Time Market (RTM), and extending later to other segments. Grid India will draft a detailed Power Market Coupling Procedure (PMCP) within six months of approval. Industry participants and bourses such as the National Stock Exchange have welcomed the move as a step toward deeper, more efficient power markets, although the listed Indian Energy Exchange has seen its share price come under pressure on concerns about its central role being diluted.

For the consumer, market coupling can in principle reduce price volatility and ensure that surplus power in one region is more efficiently routed to a deficit region, supporting renewable integration. For policy, it tightens the link between physical-grid management (already under Grid India) and price discovery — concentrating both in a single national entity.

Exam angle: Power-sector reforms, role of CERC under the Electricity Act 2003, day-ahead vs real-time markets, renewable integration, and federal structure of India's electricity governance are common UPSC and SSC GA topics.