Tata Power and The Rockefeller Foundation Announce Breakthrough Enterprise to Empower Million of Indians with Renewable Microgrid Electricity

Tata Power announces setting up of TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation to become the world’s largest microgrid developer and operator.

TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. anticipates setting up of 10,000 microgrids through 2026 to provide power to millions across India and help eradicate energy poverty.

TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd represents important scaling up of efforts to provide access to affordable, reliable and clean electricity in India, and will serve as a model for expanding access to more than 800 million people who are without power worldwide.

 NEW DELHI/Jamshedpur, November 4^th, 2019 – Today, Tata Power and The Rockefeller Foundation announced the launch of a major new initiative to set up Microgrids, which will address one of the most pervasive challenges in modern India: the lack of access to affordable, reliable electricity for millions of rural homes and enterprises. By scaling up an innovative microgrid model to be implemented in collaboration with Smart Power India (SPI) and the Institute for Transformative Technologies, TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. will provide clean power to nearly 5 million households, directly impacting the lives of 25 million people over the next decade.

This unique collaboration will amplify the Government of India’s ongoing campaign to provide electricity to rural areas, unleashing the potential of renewable microgrids to serve households and businesses that suffer from poor reliability and coverage by traditional grid-based power.

Rural businesses and households continue to rely on alternative sources to power daily needs—with more than 40% of rural enterprises in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh relying on non-grid sources of power such as diesel. TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. will provide a competitive and cleaner source of power, expanding access and lowering effective electricity costs and carbon emissions by 1 million tons per year as well as reducing the amount of diesel burned by 57 million liters yearly. Over time, the opportunity to deploy grid-interactive solutions will materialize, creating a more integrated, stable and smart rural grid.

TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. will be operated and managed by Tata Power, India’s largest integrated power company with approximately 11,000 MW of installed generation capacity and over 2.6 million customers under management across Delhi, Ajmer and Mumbai. Tata Power brings significant experience in distributed energy, having established a joint venture with Delhi government to serve a large portion of the local population, including sizeable slum communities.

“We are proud to bring energy to millions of people, once at scale, TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. anticipates supporting 100,000 rural enterprises, creating 10,000 new green jobs, and providing irrigation for over 400,000 local farmers,” said Tata Power CEO Praveer Sinha. “We look forward to empowering communities across India by creating micro enterprise and creating opportunities for all people.”

TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd.’s anticipated rollout of 10,000 grids will drastically expand the global microgrid footprint, and will act as a catalyst for governments and the private sector to collaborate in building clean, resilient and stable grids in other markets. SPI, which was launched by The Rockefeller Foundation in 2015, would provide technical expertise to the enterprise, having built microgrids that today provide clean, distributed electricity to more than 200 villages in rural India.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to transform the lives of millions of people in India by providing access to power,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. “Providing reliable electricity to the communities that need it most is one of the best ways for us to end poverty and unleash economic opportunity in our lifetimes.”

In addition to building, owning, and operating microgrids in India, TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. intends to provide ancillary micro enterprise services to benefit communities.

TP Renewable Microgrid Ltd. reflects a scaling-up of the Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts to tackle energy poverty worldwide. In September 2019, The Rockefeller Foundation also announced the launch of the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty (GCEEP) to fast-track sustainable power solutions, investments, and partnerships that will deploy globally over the next decade.