Key Highlights

• Nandan Nilekani to lead India’s digital energy grid initiative, aiming to reduce distribution costs by 25%.
• Task force will digitize decentralize power sector, enabling real-time data, renewable integration and peer-to-peer energy trading.

According to reports, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani is expected to lead a new task force aimed at digitizing and decentralizing India's power sector.

If formalized, this will be the second time the government has sought Nilekani's expertise to shape power-related reforms.

The proposed task force will report to the Ministry of Power and be funded through the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS). The initiative's main goal is to reduce generation, transmission, and distribution costs by up to 25%, according to an official.

In March, Nilekani hinted at the energy sector's transformation, writing on X, "Energy is the next UPI!" Millions of small producers will join the Digital Energy Grid (DEG).

Earlier in February, the Foundation for Interoperability in the Digital Economy (FIDE) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a whitepaper on the Digital Energy Grid. Nilekani co-authored the report's foreword, which outlined a vision for decentralised energy production and trading.

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The FIDE-IEA report envisions a future in which households equipped with solar panels or EV batteries can generate, store, and trade energy rather than just consume it.

"In this world, millions of ordinary citizens become active participants in the energy economy, transacting not only with the grid, but also directly with one another via a shared digital mesh," according to a FIDE statement.

A DEG pilot program is expected to launch soon in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It will be built on the Unified Energy Interface (UEI), a digital framework similar to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that aims to reduce manual intervention in the power sector, potentially lowering costs for end users.