Naveen Singh has over 18 years of experience across different facets of the power sector. He has held key positions at Sterlite Power, Adani, IEE and PricewaterhouseCoopers in the past. He currently heads the business development, strategy and policy advocacy functions at the Hindustan Power Exchange (HPX). Under his leadership, HPX has been able to capture about 35 per cent share in the term-ahead market within 10 months of its launch.
Singh notes, “The power trading market is getting ready for a major transformation. New long-term contracts for firm baseload supply have decreased over the last few years. The focus is shifting towards renewable energy. With fast increasing demand, there is a need for short-term supply options. Generators that were facing financial trouble due to limited Case 1 tenders during the last decade are now happy to have merchant capacity, which is giving them good returns. The share of the short-term market, which remained in the 9-10 per cent range for almost a decade till 2019-20, has seen a major breakout and was about 12.4 per cent in 2021-22 and about 12 per cent in 2022-23. This is a huge increase and has mostly benefited the exchanges, which now account for 55-60 per cent of this short-term market.”
Singh believes that as there will be greater addition of renewable capacity in the future, states will face system integration challenges. Solutions could include the addition of large hydro plants, particularly with pumped storage, and the integration of GW-scale battery storage systems, besides demand response measures.
“With recent market developments such as long-duration contracts and the ancillary services market getting launched on the power exchanges, changes such as MBED and market coupling, and with most legacy PPAs nearing conclusion, we can expect at least five to six times more volumes to be traded over exchange platforms in the next five years. The exchanges thus need to provide a variety of products that can cater to the changing needs of market players,” Singh notes.
His top priorities for HPX are ensuring exemplary levels of service to clients, bringing all active power market participants on to the exchange, increasing trade volume and market share in the existing segments, launching new segments, and ensuring corrective action for some critical market design aspects.
