Smart Grid needs $44.9-bn investment

In order to match the surging requirement of power across the country, Indian power sector is undergoing rapid transformation as the government plans to incorporate large-scale renewable resources to modernize the country's power sector. Smart grid infrastructure is seen as fundamental to this transformation. This is now changing and with large-scale deployments beginning in 2017, smart grid infrastructure investment is projected to total $44.9 billion over the period of 2017-2027, new study published recently by Northeast Group, LLC. As a matter of fact, India has always been seen as the largest potential smart grid market for international vendors, president of Northeast Group, Ben Gardner said, adding that until recently, this potential has been slow to materialize, despite extensive government plans and pressing concerns over the $23.2 bn lost each year due to power theft, but in the recent past, country is finally seeing utilities progress out of the pilot stages with multi-million end-point smart meter projects, recently announced. It is worth mentioning here that India's recently established National Smart Grid Mission has charted out a deployment schedule for the next ten years, but several utilities are also moving forward with smart grid deployments independent of government plans.