By 2030, India aims to meet 50% of its energy requirements from renewables, thereby reducing its economy’s emissions by 45% and producing a billion tons fewer CO2 emissions. This ambitious objective was at the center of the eighth edition of India Smart Utility Week 2022 (ISUW), which took place remotely from March 2nd to 4th. The initiative brings together the main Indian utilities, businesses operating in the field, policy makers, regulators, investors and the top energy experts to discuss trends and share best practices in the energy sector: from electric mobility to smart cities with the goal of promoting the energy transition.
India is the world’s fifth largest economy, with a population of over 1.3 billion and is accelerating the digital transformation of its power systems and the overhaul of its energy distribution models.
Our CEO, Robert Denda, took part in the first session of the conference, during which he discussed the transformation undergone by utilities and the country’s digitalization roadmap.
Gridspertise in India
India is committed to the promotion of innovative policies and programs to electrify and decarbonize the energy sector, transport and other industries, through a holistic approach.
In this scenario, the distribution networks are the main enablers for increasing the renewable energy generation and guaranteeing the best quality of service of the electricity supply.
At present, the electrical grid infrastructure in India presents a few challenges in terms of performance. This is due to technical and commercial losses, frequent power interruptions caused by adverse climate events and lack of real-time communication of the system’s malfunctions. For this reason, a modernization process, supported by conspicuous public investment, is a key priority for the sector.
It is within this context that our presence at India Smart Utility Week represents an important opportunity to introduce our Company and sustainable and innovative solutions that aim to support the Indian utilities accelerate the grid digitalization process.
The synergies between the European and Indian markets for smart grids are also evident in the Smart Grid Replication Handbook for India. This was the outcome of the first year’s work of the “EU-India High level platform for smart grids,” which was launched within the scope of the EU-CECP (Clean Energy and Climate Partnership).
The platform was chaired by the FSR (Florence School of Regulation) in cooperation with the University of Comillas and the India Smart Grid Forum.
Smart meters: a first step towards grid digitalization
India plans to install 250 million smart meters over the next four years in order to modernize its energy grid. The goal is to reduce aggregate technical and commercial losses to 12-15% and to cancel the gap between the Average Cost of Supply and Average Revenue Realized.
Smart meters can help to stabilize the grid through granular consumption data, enabling real-time monitoring of energy use, advanced management of the grids’ technical parameters and the detection of critical events, such as blackouts. Furthermore, smart meters improve billing and credit collection, while enabling customized tariffs and the integration of distributed renewable energy.
The benefits of digitalization regard most of the stakeholders because it will enable to increase efficiency, resilience and quality of service, while facilitating electrification and fostering energy efficiency in the Indian energy system. For clients, this will mean a financial saving, in addition to having a more reliable power supply.
Gridspertise is also exploring new sustainable business models in order to mitigate the upfront investments of capital needed, by developing pay-as-you-save solutions.
Smart meters are a first step towards grid transformation to increase resilience, efficiency and sustainability.