Gram Power is a young energy technology startup out of University of California – Berkeley working with the bold mission To Electrify India – Intelligently.
The national electricity grid of India loses nearly 60% of its power due to theft, pilferage and technical losses, as compared to ~7% losses in developed nations. This is the situation, when over 300 million people in India are living off the grid! Most of this population lives in remote rural areas where it is economically unviable to extend the central utility grid.
Gram Power sets up Smart Microgrids in remote rural areas for 20 homes or more. These microgrids locally generate their own energy from renewable sources such as solar, wind or biomass and distribute this power using their Smart Grid technology that tackles the 3 main challenges of rural electrification – 1) Identifying and eliminating energy theft, 2) Providing clean, reliable, on-demand power for household, commercial and agriculture loads, and 3) Eliminating payment defaults. This is made possible with Gram Power’s proprietary Smart Meters, Grid Monitoring Systems, and intelligent Demand-Response algorithms that optimize supply and demand of power and greatly enhance grid reliability.
Gram Power’s prepaid power purchase model, inspired from the telecom revolution in India, along with theft-proof distribution technology is saving almost 2kWh of power/day/household. This creates potential to save over 43,800 million kWh/year or $3.5 billion annually. When installed on the existing national grid, the impact can be multiplied several folds.
Today, Gram Power is the only company in India focusing on Smart Energy Distribution in rural areas. Their technology and business model is creating a paradigm shift in energy distribution and consumption in the country. NASA too awarded Gram Power’s technology among the top 10 cleantech innovations from around the world.
