By Andhra Pradesh Eastern
Copyright thehindu
A Centre of Excellence for Energy Transition (CoEET) will be set up in Visakhapatnam, for which the State government has recently approved a proposal submitted earlier by Andhra Pradesh Eastern Power Distribution Company Limited (APEPDCL).
The CoEET will be set up as a society registered under the Societies Registration Act under the control of the APEPDCL. Educational institutions such as Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Visakhapatnam, Andhra University and the Indian Institute of Petroleum & Energy (IIPE) will also be stakeholders of the facility, apart from the thinktanks such as Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
The CoEET will function from an energy-efficient building at Sagar Nagar on the Visakhapatnam-Bheemili Beach Road. In a meeting held on July 5, the stakeholders approved the plans to convert the building into a CoEET and share the future costs for the CoEET among the DISCOMs, APGENCO and APTRANSCO.
Some of the facilities proposed are an innovation lab, and R&D workspace, training classrooms and seminar halls, startup incubation bay, digital twin and smart grid simulation setup.
The required funds can be raised through various channels such as internal allocation from the APEPDCL and all power utilities in the State, grants from Central government agencies, industry CSR funds and donor partnerships.
A dedicated team for managing the CoEET will be constituted by deputing officers from the power utilities as required. It will be supplemented by appointing sector experts and skeleton staff on fixed-term contracts.
“The objectives of the CoEET are to position both power utilities and Andhra Pradesh as thought leaders and enablers in the clean energy transformation journey in line with India’s national energy goals and global climate commitments,” said I. Prudhvitej, Chairman & Managing Director, APEPDCL.
Explaining the objectives, Mr. Prudhvitej said that CoEET can facilitate research and innovation in energy transition technologies, promote skill development and capacity building programmes in line with industry needs, enhance collaboration between academia, industry, government and civil society, support policy making through data-driven insights and pilot programmes, and promote entrepreneurship and incubation of energy technology startups.
“In the next five years, CoEET aims to deliver more than 20 applied research and pilot projects, train more than 1,000 professionals, and incubate 10 new startups,” Mr. Prudhvitej told The Hindu.
The CoEET in Visakhapatnam is similar to the one in Hyderabad, which is being developed at TERI’s Institute of Energy Transition on its campus.
Hyderabad’s CoEET is a joint initiative of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and TERI.
