Nandan Nilekani likely to head power reforms panel

Time of India

4 hours ago

Infosys
co-founder
Nandan Nilekani
is likely to head a task force on the digitisation and decentralisation of the
Indian power sector
, officials aware of the development told ET.
If it goes according to plan, this would be the second time the government has asked Nilekani to give a blueprint for power reforms.
The Nilekani-led task force will be supported from funds allocated under the
Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme
(RDSS) of the power ministry.
"A correction of up to 25% in generation, transmission and distribution costs is the desired outcome of this exercise," an official aware of the project told ET.
ET's email queries to Nilekani did not elicit a response until press time.
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In a post on X in March, Nilekani had said, "Energy is the next UPI! Millions of small producers will participate in the
Digital Energy Grid
(DEG)".
In February, the Foundation for Interoperability in Digital Economy (FIDE) and International Energy Agency (IEA) published a whitepaper on the DEG.
Nilekani co-authored the foreword of this report.
The FIDE-IEA report proposed a future where every home with a solar panel, or an electric vehicle (EV) battery, will be generating, storing and trading energy instead of just consuming it.
"In this world, millions of everyday citizens become active participants in the energy economy, transacting not just with the grid, but directly with each other over a shared digital mesh," a statement from FIDE had said.
A pilot DEG project is expected to be shortly launched in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It will be based on Unified Energy Interface (UEI), a digital architecture similar to UPI. Sector watchers said this project and lowering manual intervention in the power sector is expected to reduce costs to the end consumers.