This paper aims to investigate whether COVID-19 pandemic causes the spot electricity price discovery of the Indian electricity market. To do so, we use the average daily spot electricity price data for five regions of the Indian electricity market (North, East, West, South, and North-East). The data is considered from March 15, 2020 to May 02, 2020. The results obtained from cross-sectional augmented Im, Pesaran and Shin (CIPS) unit root test show the stationary of spot electricity price and COVID-19 at the level. Additionally, we use the Dumitrescu–Hurlin (DH) panel causality test to examine the causality between spot electricity price and COVID-19. The results reveal the unidirectional causality which is running from COVID-19 to the spot electricity price discovery but no other way around. Our findings suggests to the policymakers that across different regions of India (North, East, West, South, and North-East), the ongoing coronavirus outbreak will further disrupt the electricity market. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd