India has one of the largest and fastest-growing electricity power systems in the world, driven by rising demand, urbanization, and rapid deployment of renewable energy. To manage the system efficiently and economically, the electricity market in India plays a critical role, offering a range of products tailored to the diverse needs of stakeholders. These products vary by timeframe—covering long-term, medium-term, and short-term contracts—as well as by contract structure, including bilateral agreements between entities, transactions through trading licensees, and collective transactions conducted on power exchanges. To address the growing scale and complexity of the sector, India has gradually transitioned from a fully regulated, vertically integrated power system to a more market-oriented electricity trading framework.

India’s electricity sector is now witnessing a gradual shift from rigid, long-term contracting towards more flexible, market-based procurement mechanisms. Within this evolving framework, Over-The-Counter (OTC) electricity trading plays a vital role by enabling direct, bilateral transactions between buyers and sellers outside power exchanges. The SPASHT Data Portal has been developed for NAME (New Age Markets in Electricity – India’s first OTC Platform for the Power Sector) as a dedicated analytics and data platform to support market participants and facilitate electricity transactions in the OTC market.

Under regulations issued by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), an OTC platform is required to fulfil the following objectives:

1. To provide an electronic platform containing information on potential buyers and sellers of electricity;
2. To maintain a repository of data related to buyers and sellers and provide such historical data to market participants;
3. To offer value-added services, including advanced data analytics tools, to market participants.

In alignment with the objectives outlined by CERC, SPASHT has been designed to function as a centralized data and analytics repository for the OTC electricity market. The portal enhances market transparency by providing structured access to relevant historical and market-related data, while preserving the confidentiality inherent in bilateral trading arrangements. Through its robust data management and analytical capabilities, SPASHT supports informed decision-making and promotes greater efficiency in OTC electricity transactions.

The key features of the SPASHT Data Portal are as follows:

1. Centralized Historical Data Repository: SPASHT provides access to comprehensive historical data, including power supply position, installed capacity, electricity generation, electricity futures contracts, REC transactions, market prices and volumes, and DEEP data. This enables participants to understand the evolution and trends of the OTC market over time.
2. Enhanced Market Transparency: By consolidating reliable market data on a single digital platform, SPASHT reduces information asymmetry and enhances visibility into OTC market dynamics, thereby supporting fair, transparent, and informed participation.
3. Advanced Analytics and Insights: Through integrated analytics tools, SPASHT enables users to track price and volume trends, compare historical market behaviour, analyse demand–supply patterns, and support planning and negotiation decisions. These insights help participants better assess opportunities and risks prior to entering into transactions.
4. User-Centric Data Access: SPASHT is designed to serve a diverse set of market participants—including generators, DISCOMs, traders, and open-access consumers—by presenting data in a structured, accessible, and user-friendly format.

By providing structured historical and market-related data, SPASHT empowers market participants to transition from intuition-based decisions to data-driven strategies. The portal delivers tangible benefits to various stakeholders:

1. DISCOMs can leverage historical data to improve short- and medium-term procurement planning.
2. Generators gain insights into demand patterns and pricing behaviour to optimise their sales strategies.
3. Power Traders can benchmark transactions and strengthen negotiations with data-backed insights.
4. Open Access Consumers can better evaluate market trends and price movements before contracting power.

The strategic role played by SPASHT in strengthening the OTC electricity market is based on the following key considerations:

1. Improving data availability while preserving bilateral confidentiality;
2. Supporting informed, efficient, and transparent transactions;
3. Aligning with regulatory objectives related to transparency and market development.

By complementing exchange-based markets, SPASHT contributes to a more balanced, mature, and resilient power trading ecosystem.

As India’s electricity market continues to evolve with increasing renewable energy integration and growing demand for flexible procurement data and analytics will become central to effective decision-making. SPASHT represents a significant step toward creating a data-enabled OTC market where participants can transact with greater confidence, clarity, and efficiency. In fact, SPASHT is more than a data portal; it is a foundational platform that promotes transparency, insight, and informed participation in OTC electricity trading. By equipping market participants with robust historical data and analytics, SPASHT helps unlock the full potential of India’s bilateral power market.