Why India's start-ups are driving energy sector innovation

For Jitendra Kumar Agarwal, Joint Managing Director of the Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association (IEEMA) in India, this is the best time to be a start-up in India, especially when it comes to the energy industry.

Speaking to Editor-in-Chief Kelvin Ross during an exclusive interview at Enlit Europe, Agarwal discussed how India is increasingly being recognised as a 'hotbed' of innovation, which is reflected in the number of start-ups the country is producing.

"We are a country of start-ups," states Agarwal, who claims that "this is the best time [for start-ups] to be a part of the journey" India's energy transition is going through.

"In an increasingly uncertain and fast-moving business environment, large companies face pressure to innovate more rapidly.

"Their challenge is two-fold: to innovate incrementally to grow their existing business, while understanding ongoing changes in their industry and making provisions for more radical changes. The latter is proving to be difficult."

For Agarwal, such challenges provide a unique opportunity in the country's existing energy ecosystem for much-needed collaboration with start-ups, who develop increasingly innovative technologies to push the energy transition forward.

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"Many large companies are realising this and they cannot simply rely on internally-generated knowledge. And so startups have become a huge source for these large companies because of their innovation.

"This combination of large companies working very closely with the government of India's support for their start-ups" has led to India becoming what Agarwal described as the innovation hub for the world.