International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad (IIIT-H) has announced that Silicon Labs, a leading provider of silicon, software and solutions, is the first corporate founding partner for its new Smart City Living Lab. The lab’s mission is to provide a research and development ecosystem for next-generation technologies designed to improve safety, sustainability, energy efficiency, sanitation, and overall quality of life in densifying cities. It is part of the institute’s Smart City Research Center, supported by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Smart Cities Mission, Telangana government, and European Business and Technology Centre.

India pitched for common international standards for green hydrogen at the BRICS Green Hydrogen Summit, to ensure safe transportation and storage of the new age emission-free fuel. India had organised the two-day summit on green hydrogen involving Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, also referred to as the BRICS nations, on their initiatives around the green fuel.  Ministry of Power stated that Government and industry must work together to ensure existing regulations are not an unnecessary barrier to investment. Trade will benefit from common international standards for the safety of transporting and storing large volumes of hydrogen and having appropriate certificate of origin

Siemens Ltd has signed a MOU with Switch Mobility Automotive Ltd to jointly address need of commercial electric vehicle (EV) customers and execute E-Mobility Projects in India. Switch Mobility will bring its electric commercial vehicle industry experience while Siemens will provide the charging infrastructure technology and charging infrastructure management software solution. The two companies will collaborate on new business models such as eMobility-as-a-Service (eMaas), integrated depot energy management, Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) as well as on-site / off-site renewable energy sources by leveraging batteries from commercial vehicles.

French power utility firm EDF said it has installed 1 lakh smart electricity meters in India. The milestone marks the beginning of the commercial rollout of its 5-million smart electricity meters contract, nearly half of which will be installed in Bihar. "Global low-carbon electricity leader EDF successfully installed 100,000 smart meters in India under its contract with Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL)," an EDF statement said. According to the statement, this is the first large-scale prepaid smart meter solution to be deployed in India. The contract was awarded to EDF in association with Accenture Solutions Private Limited (India) in 2019.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long standing international partnerships on energy cooperation which have been mutually beneficial to all stakeholders. These international partnerships support the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) 2016-2025, a regional blueprint for energy cooperation which was endorsed by the ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting (AMEM).

Ministry of Power has decided to set up a National Mission on use of Biomass in coal based thermal power plants. This would further support the energy transition in the country and our targets to move towards cleaner energy sources.  The proposed National Mission on biomass will also contribute in the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

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Ministry of Power has invited suggestions/inputs on draft National Electricity Policy (NEP) 2021.

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• Seeking comments on specifications and testing procedures for solar off grid applications.

With an aim to provide single-window access to energy data for the country, government think tank Niti Aayog on Monday launched India Energy Dashboards (IED) Version 2.0, according to an official statement.  While launching the IED, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said that it is an endeavour to establish a central energy database of the country. "With the rise of renewables and many other new energy technologies, the interplays between energy supply and demand sectors are now becoming increasingly critical," he said adding that the scenario building exercise is the key as India needs to seize today's opportunities to build a sustainable tomorrow.

Power and Renewable Energy Minister said a committee will be set up having members from all relevant Ministries for implementation of the Roadmap on Energy Efficiency and low carbon technologies. A high-level meeting to review the progress of various energy efficiency programmes and the preparedness for Climate Change Actions in the country was held. The purpose of this high-level meeting was to discuss activities in the field of energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy with the objective of reducing CO2 emissions. The Minister said a concerted push for renewables is already under way and a detailed action plan will be developed to identify potential areas.