National, February 1, 2023 — Tata Power, one of India’s largest integrated power companies, today announced a historic new initiative with an Industry-leading Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and Distributed Energy Management System (DERMS) provider AutoGrid to deploy an AI-enabled smart energy management system (SEMS) focusing on the behavioural demand response across its residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Mumbai. This pioneering program will help address peak demand challenges and support India's clean energy transition and Net Zero Goals.
Serving Tata Power’s customers in Mumbai, India’s most populous city, the demand response management program aims to engage 55,000 residential consumers and 6,000 large C&I customers to achieve 75MW of peak capacity reduction, within the first six months of the rollout, beginning February 2023, and then continue to scale up to 200MW by the summer of 2025.
The two companies’ collaboration started in 2021 with the launch of demand response program for Tata Power Delhi Distribution’s residential customers in Delhi. Based on the success of this engagement, Tata Power significantly expanded the initiative within the Delhi distribution region in 2022. AutoGrid is now extending this program across Tata Power’s distribution territories to include all consumer segments.
In addition to the behavioural demand response (BDR) program, Tata Power will stack on an automated demand response (ADR) program with direct load control assisted by customer participation with its in-house smart plug platform called EZ Home.
With Tata Power’s new demand response program built on the AutoGrid Flex™ platform, consumers can earn incentives by choosing to curtail their load in response to signals relayed via text messages and/or email during times of critical need. The aggregation of small demand adjustments by consumers has the potential to eliminate the need for costly and heavy-polluting plants.
"AI-enabled Demand Behavioural Response System has the potential to empower customers and make them join the energy transition journey. Tata Power is committed to make this advanced system mainstream and promote a culture of hi-tech energy conservation". said Dr. Praveer Sinha, CEO and MD, Tata Power." Our association with AutoGrid allows us to partner with our customers in load management and help them save on their energy consumption.", he adds.
"India and Tata Power can reach ambitious sustainability goals by leveraging the flexible capacity available by adopting innovative approaches to leverage distributed energy resources," said Amit Narayan, AutoGrid Founder and CEO. "At AutoGrid, we feel privileged and passionate about supporting Tata Power’s visionary efforts to collaborate with its customers through behavioural and AI-driven demand orchestration."
Over the last two decades, India has seen rapid growth in distributed energy resources, including solar, smart meters, electric vehicles (EVs), and EV charging infrastructure. The country has a huge opportunity to harness demand side flexibility, strengthen the grid, and advance sustainability, but the lack of a singular, scalable program has hindered progress in the past. Additionally, the lack of adequate regulatory approval prevents these resources from being utilized at the incredible scale the India market has to offer. AutoGrid’s platform has been proven to scale DER management programs from thousands to millions and is therefore uniquely positioned to take advantage of India’s opportunity.
