Data systems can transform India's electricity supply

A digital energy grid could link up the power sector to unlock efficiency and serve our future needs

- RAHUL MATTHAN

We have gotten so accustomed to the near-universal availability of electricity that we barely spare a thought for the infrastructure behind it. Generating stations dotted across the length and breadth of India produce power that is fed into an electricity grid which carries it to our homes and offices. The entire system works so reliably that we have come to assume there will always be a socket on the wall to charge our phone from, no matter where we are in the country.

The core design of our energy ecosystem hasn't changed in over a century. Whenever new technologies and systems became available, they were bolted on, like a patchwork job, without altering the way the system works. Since much of our energy infrastructure was built in a pre-digital era, we still have to physically verify various contractual obligations and performance metrics. New solutions designed for specific aspects of the energy ecosystem, such as charging networks for electric vehicles (EVs), have not been integrated into the grid, despite the fact that doing so will improve its overall efficiency. And our laws, written a long time ago, come in the way of integrating small distributed energy generation systems into the grid.