India Grids of the Future Accelerator launched

Mumbai: Coinciding with the inaugural Mumbai Climate Week 2026, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet launched the India Grids of the Future Accelerator, a national platform through which the alliance will deploy up to $25 million to modernise power distribution, integrate renewable energy and storage, and prepare India’s grids for rapid demand growth.

The Alliance signed Memoranda of Understanding with distribution companies (DISCOMs) in Delhi and Rajasthan, designating them as the first cohort of “Champion Utilities” under the Grids of the Future initiative, and with All India DISCOM Association (AIDA).

Speaking at the launch, Jayant Sinha, President, Eversource Capital and former Union Minister and Chair, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance said, “As India advances towards the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047, reliable, modern and future-ready power systems will be central to sustaining growth and energy security. The recent Union Budget reinforces the importance of strengthening infrastructure to enable the clean energy transition at scale. Initiatives like the India Grids of the Future Accelerator demonstrate how coordinated, delivery-focused partnerships can translate national priorities into on-ground outcomes.”

The launch brought together senior leaders from government, utilities, and the clean energy ecosystem, including Dr Rajiv J Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation; Seema Paul, Program Director for India at Sequoia Climate Foundation and Sujith Nair, CEO, FIDE.

“Today, energy access is the biggest obstacle to human well-being—but it’s also our biggest collective opportunity. India has become a global leader in delivering clean, affordable, abundant energy to the people of the world’s most populous country. Now, the Grids of the Future Accelerator will build on that extraordinary progress, helping to modernise India’s grid through a first-of-its-kind public, private, and philanthropic collaboration,” said Shah.

Having helped drive near-universal electricity access, India now faces a new challenge: moving from connections to energy abundance. The Global Energy Alliance’s Grids of the Future initiative is designed to meet this moment as a globally coordinated, locally delivered platform that brings together governments, utilities, financiers, innovators, and technical partners to modernise power systems across the Global South.

By 2030, the India Grids of the Future Accelerator will advance grid transformation through its D4 framework; driving digitalisation (D1) of utilities through digital twins and advanced analytics, enabling smarter integration of distributed energy resources (D2), accelerating the democratisation (D3) of electricity by empowering consumers to participate in the energy system, and advancing the development (D4) of a strong innovation ecosystem to scale future-ready solutions.

Through this integrated approach, the initiative aims to support 15 or more utilities, positively impacting nearly 300 million people across India. The Accelerator will onboard an initial cohort of utilities for early implementation, convene government partners, technology providers, investors, and philanthropic funders into a delivery-focused coalition, and build toward a three-year, $100 million fundraising effort from 2026 to 2028 to unlock large-scale public and private investment.

““India’s clean energy transition is entering a decisive new phase, one defined not by access alone, but by the ability of power systems to deliver reliability, flexibility, and scale. Through the India Grids of the Future Accelerator, we are working hand-in-hand with utilities to build the digital, financial, and institutional capacity required to integrate renewables and storage at scale. Together with ENTICE 3.0, this marks a decisive shift from pilots to platforms, and from ambition to execution at scale,” added Woochong Um, CEO of the Global Energy Alliance.