India's ambitious energy stack takes shape, but faces legacy hurdles

The core of the India Energy Stack is to make energy pay for itself by a constant exchange of data between governments, the private sector, and consumers, but chronic problems of bad pricing remain

India’s power sector has not taken kindly to innovation, in so far as it relates to enforcing efficiency and reducing costs. Despite an impressive national grid, a growing renewable energy (RE) footprint, and plans to make India a hub for cross border electricity supply, chronic old problems of badly-set electricity prices leading to financial weakness in the power distribution companies refuse to go away.

 

This makes the power ministry's latest plan unveiled last week to set up an India Energy Stack (IES) an interesting proposition. At the heart of this ambitious plan is to make energy pay for itself by