Energy Access Summit 2018 highlights

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The event was organized by the Climate Group and Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN) in a partnership with Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), India in Delhi. The summit witnessed the broad range of speakers discussing the energy access issues in India.

Discussions regarding the potential of decentralized renewable energy (DRE) in India were held. The summit also focused on issues like how India can reach electrification for all households by 2019, an ambitious target set by current government with a scheme of Saubhagaya, also highlighted in the Budget 2018-19.

This was the third year of the summit, and a few significant announcements were also made. Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, has announced that the organization is investing $3 million in cKers Finance – new specialized sustainable non-banking financial company. The latter wants to scale up India’s distributed energy sector and to help operators of distributed energy to grow.

The other announcement was from Tata Trusts foundation for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (FISE), Barefoot College and Frontier Markets. A joint announcement from all three was made regarding “Social Alpha Energy Challenge” is being introduced where innovators of various stages in energy lifecycle right from generation to distribution and storage are being invited to find the impact of innovations that could drive system change in the field of energy.  The sectors for this include households, farms, infrastructure, buildings, utility, and transport.

Helen Clarkson, CEO, The Climate Group said that energy access is about building a cleaner and sustainable future, while India is having an ambitious goal and huge potential it can take a global leadership role. She further added that world of energy is changing rapidly with the fourth industrial revolution, where technologies like blockchain, internet of things, artificial intelligence, big data, and software are driving the market.

S.N Srinivas, CEO, CLEAN said that summit aims to bring together all the stakeholders from the private sector to governmental and non-governmental organizations, manufacturers, and technology creators for exploiting the hidden potential of DRE systems.

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