Industry
India to be testbed for implementing decarbonisation technologies globally, says GEAPP CEO
Summary
The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet is leveraging India's strengths in technology and low labour costs to pilot clean energy solutions. With significant investments planned, GEAPP aims to enhance sustainability efforts in developing nations.
New Delhi: The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) plans to use India as a testbed for new decarbonisation technologies that would then be commercially operationalised in other developing countries.
"We can use India as a testbed where we can actually try innovative approaches to solve climate problems and then through that process, we expect to gain solutions that are actually workable in the developing world," Woochong Um, CEO of the organisation, told Mint in an interview.
He said GEAPP is working on digitisation of a transmission grid in Rajasthan, using artificial intelligence to optimise its functioning, reduce circulation and provide better services. Once the project is complete, GEAPP plans to showcase it at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30) in Brazil in November 2025.
Um said that amid geopolitical uncertainty, India will be among the global leaders in sustainability, along with Brazil and South Africa. Acknowledging concerns over countries moving away from their green targets, he said the emphasis and progress on sustainability will continue and developing countries like India would take the lead.
"The world will pursue this green growth because that's where the opportunities will be and especially in countries like India – you have tremendous capital, human capital with skills and expertise and abundance and a relatively young population. We at GEAPP are looking at bringing in global knowledge, global experience, global financing – public and private – here," he said.
India advantage
The GEAPP CEO said India’s strength in information technology and AI, along with cheaper labour costs, plays a major role in bringing in new clean energy solutions and implementing them first in the country.
"If you work anywhere, let's say in the US, to develop a software, in the end you actually are going to India. So, we come right to the source, and we are doing this at a fraction, like 20, 30%, of the cost of other places. On top of that, labour is cheaper," he said.
Um said that with financing for sustainability yet to pick up, developing countries like India, Brazil and South Africa would take the lead in implementing measures to mitigate climate change and developed nations should be more generous in financing and transferring technology.
"In the future, the leadership will come from India, Brazil, South Africa and the developing world, where it's beneficial to the country's growth by taking on the responsibility. What the developed world needs to do is they need to step up to provide more concessional resources to make it easier for some of the new technologies to be flowing into some of these developing countries," he said.
Out of $470 million that GEAPP has deployed globally, about $100 million was spent in India. The organisation, whose founder partners include the IKEA Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund, is now looking at increasing fund deployment in India.
"We're actually discussing with about 10 different potential funders," he said.
On 8 January, GEAPP announced a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) in partnership with the International Solar Alliance to mobilise $100 million to fund high-impact solar energy projects.
It also launched initiatives with DUET (Digitalization of Utilities for Energy Transition) and ENTICE 2.0 (Energy Transitions Innovation Challenge) to bridge financing gaps, enhance institutional capacity and foster cost-efficient scalable solutions to support India's clean energy transition.
