Cross-border Power Trading Model for South Asian Regional Power Pool

Power sector reform is currently underway in several countries of South Asia. This is noticed mainly in the form of change in the investment and ownership pattern, and increasing role for the private investment, both domestic and foreign. These countries continue to be characterized by low per capita consumption of energy, poor quality of energy infrastructure, skewed distribution and inaccessible and costly energy availability. Interconnection of power systems of contiguously located countries and their coordinated operation provide immense technical and economic benefits. The main issue is to run the system in free and fair manner ensuring quality power to the consumer’s at most economical price through safe, secure and reliable operation of the power system resulting in transparent price discovery. Although a number of market models are prevalent in the international arena, the same could not be directly adopted for South Asian Regional power market. This paper is focused on integrating the power market in South Asia, examining the opportunities, benefits, and challenges. Complexity of electricity market in cross border international model scenario has been analyzed in this paper and a model for South Asian Regional Power Pool has been proposed. Demand and supply side bidding scenarios with case studies are presented in the paper.