At the inaugural session of GridWeek Asia 2012 organised by IEEMA (Indian Electrical & Electronics Manufacturers' Association) and Clasma Events and co-located at ELECRAMA-2012, Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister, Government of India and Chairman, Indian Smart Grid Task Force, said that the government is planning to set up 'Smart Meter Task Force' that will look into modernising our primitive ways of calculating power usage.

"It is amazing to see how India - which is a super power in Information Technology - lags terribly in the Power Sector. It is really annoying to see our primitive ways of providing power - be it evacuation, grids, meters or even the way we manually calculate power consumption till date. All this has to change and it will change, for this decade has been declared by the Government as the 'Decade of Innovation'," said Mr Pitroda.

The Government reckons that India needs 100 million meters and towards this end, the Smart Meter Task Force will be entrusted the task of introducing Rs 1000-1500 low cost meters. "We need a 2-chip meter that can be connected through GSM technology. Basically a dumb meter that is smart enough. These low cost meters will feed critical data into the smart grids that are considered to be the panacea for our primitive power sector," Mr Pitroda added.

Mr Pitroda said that the UPA government is committed to democratising information and towards this end two major steps have already been taken. One, the Government has initiated a National Knowledge Centre wherein 1500 nodes will capture data across sectors and feed into a central node. Of these 750 nodes are already connected and the balance 750 nodes will be operational in the next 12 months. Two, mammoth number of 250,000 Panchayats (local governments) will be connected through optical fibre enabling faster and better education, health services, public services and governance, etc. "The Government has earmarked US$ 5-6 billion for one-of-its-kind project in the World.

According to Mr Pitroda the government has set up US$ 1 billion Venture Fund to foster 'Innovation' across sectors and States. "We have set up a National Innovation Centre that will oversee State Innovation Centres and 100 Sectoral Innovation Houses. All these efforts beautifully tie-up into the Smart Grids. Today I personally think that power is our biggest bottleneck for 8% GDP growth. It is a larger challenge that many of us don't realize considering that power has to reach to the bottom of the pyramid and that too cheap power. Only Smart Grids - that too India specific model of Smart Grids - can solve our problems. The Western model is not scalable, affordable and workable."

ELECRAMA hosted the maiden GridWeek Asia, which is an extension of the annual GridWeek conference held in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. The Smart Grid potential in Asia - a rapidly growing market - is expected to reach US$22 billion by 2020.

Globally recognised as the must-attend Smart Grid gathering, GridWeek is the only event that attracts the complete diversity of Smart Grid stakeholders to explore Smart Grid's impact on the economy, utility infrastructure, consumers and the environment, while answering the industry's most pressing questions.

India is experiencing rapid growth in gross domestic product (GDP), with an expected growth rate of over 8 per cent per annum this decade, which is fuelling the need for expedited infrastructure development. India's total installed generation capacity is close to 175,000 MW, and the country requires an additional 100,000 MW of generation capacity in the next six years with the corresponding investment expected at well over $500 billion (USD) in the electricity sector.