CERC issued a discussion paper on “Shortening the scheduling Timeline for Real Time Markets in India” on 6th May, 2026 and invited comments and suggestions from stakeholders till 28th May, 2026. The paper has mentioned that few automations like National Open Access Registry (NOAR) and other technological advancement have enabled regular, timely exchange between power exchanges and system operators. Hence, the paper proposes to reduce the timeline between the end of ‘Revision of Schedule ‘and actual delivery of power from the existing 75 minutes to 50 minutes. Our suggestions and comments on the staff paper, detailed in the attached document, are briefed below:

• Need to clarify changes in timelines given for revising demand and supply schedule, considering wider ramification of such change on system operation
• Need to understand its operational impact
  • On DISCOMs: Give sufficient time to adopt to shorter bidding window
  • Operational complexities: Risk of non-clearance of market volumes (due to market clearing algorithm or failure of communication) and time required for multiple iterative runs of clearing algorithm, along with the proposal to implement market coupling
  • Need to have some buffer time for different optimisation runs and final schedule preparation, prepare a risk identification and mitigation document to carefully audit potential risks and evaluate feasible mitigation strategies to address them