Indian electrical manufacturers to angel fund new age energy start-ups

To meet the challenges of fast-changing energy paradigms, the domestic electrical manufacturers are bracing up to onboard new age energy start-ups with financial and logistical support.

Under the aegis of Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers’ Association (IEEMA), a committee of sector experts would select energy start-ups for handholding and angel funding.

“The power sector is changing fast and the industry is sometimes not able to keep pace. Now, we have decided to handhold the selected energy start-ups because these initiatives lack institutional support in India,” IEEMA director general Sunil Misra told Business Standard here. IEEMA is the apex body of domestic manufacturers of electrical, industrial electronics and allied equipment.

He informed the selected start-ups would be supported by IEEMA members, which currently has about 850 members in the country with a collective turnover of over 42 billion US dollars.

IEEMA is organising its 13th biennial conference ‘ELECRAMA 2018’ at India Expo Mart, Greater Noida during 10-14 March, in which Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has also been invited on the inaugural day and he has in principle accepted the invitation.

If Adityanath visits the conference, it would be the second mega business summit he would be visiting in less than a month after hosting UP Investors Summit 2018 in Lucknow during 21-22 February 2018.

“We are expecting total business volumes generated during ELECRAMA 2018 in excess of one billion dollars,” Misra informed. The previous edition of the event was held in 2016 at Bengaluru when total business deals signed were estimated at almost a billion dollars.

ELECRAMA covers the entire gamut of electricity viz. generation, transmission, distribution, power electronics, renewable, power storage, electro-mobility and automation. It is touted as the biggest power sector show in the world.

Misra said in the backdrop of the central government’s plans to move towards electric vehicles in India by 2030, the domestic power and energy industry had a massive opportunity to harness and rise up to the challenges.

“Beyond the purview of the plying of electric vehicles, the whole value chain of infrastructure and logistics would need up-gradation and adaptation, which would present a huge business opportunity to the domestic industry,” he underlined.

“We are hosting about 600 international buyers and importers from African, South East Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries to ELECRAMA to support the domestic electric and electronics manufacturers tap the export market,” he added.

Misra stressed the future of global energy was green energy and with increasing emphasis on reduced carbon emission from the power sector, low carbon growth strategy was being adopted in India. The fact is that renewable power technologies have arrived, and are already challenging the domination of fossil-based power generation, he said. “In a country hitherto dominated by conventional energy supplies, this brings challenges and opportunities.”