New Delhi : India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India’s leading alliance on energy storage and e-mobility and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) presents “Facility of Low Carbon Deployment” (FLCTD) Innovation Challenge for promoting technology innovation in the beta deployment of electrical energy storage in India.

Under this partnership, UNIDO has announced the launch of the 5th Innovation Challenge on Innovative Low Carbon Technologies (FLCTD; https://www.low-carbon-innovation.org/).  The Innovation Challenge is jointly implemented by UNIDO and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). The applications will be accepted until 31st May 2022. Customized Energy Solutions (CES) India, powered by India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) is the implementing partner to support the project management unit in the planning and implementation of the innovation challenge.

Commenting on the Innovation Challenge 2022, Sandeep Tandon, National Programme Manager, Facility for Low Carbon Technology Deployment (FLCTD) said, “UNIDO’s Innovation Challenge provides unique opportunity and risk-capital of up to INR 3.5 million to validate the efficacy and performance of innovative technologies for scale-up and commercialization. Already from a pool of 59 winning innovations that are being supported with INR 180 million, 17 have completed technology trials and 13 have been commercialized. The challenge is open to entrepreneurs, start-up,s and registered private entities. FLCTD is helping industrial and commercial sector players to choose proven innovative low carbon technologies for decarbonization.”

Debi Prasad Dash, Executive Director, India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) said, “India’s energy storage sector is seeing many positive developments like the PLI and battery swapping announcement, and the energy storage policy is also expected from the Ministry of Power. With these developments, we will see many startups and large companies diversify their business into energy storage space and this will help many indigenous innovations in India that will support the ecosystem. This all will catalyze the growth of startups in India. With the national labs and research institutes, we expect new innovations to come in India similar to other emerging countries.”

The selection process includes post-application screening, pitching to an expert panel, in-person visits, and technical and financial due diligence. The project orientation of FLCTD is more technology-focused as compared to the standard fundraising opportunities available for innovators, so the shortlisted applicants are also provided mentoring through each round of the selection process to help them in improving their chances of final selection.

The Innovation Challenge covers the thematic area of “Electrical Energy Storage Systems” in which applications are invited for innovative solutions on electrochemical batteries, supercapacitors, and hybrid energy storage systems including super/ultra-capacitor & electrochemical battery systems, and critical components for electrical energy storage systems including power conversion system.

The project provides financial assistance of up to US$50,000 to the winners to validate their innovation and demonstrate its efficacy (performance) in actual field conditions – a necessary step before commercialization. It also supports innovative technologies in an advanced stage of development for field demonstration and validation and does not support innovation that is at the ideation stage, proof-of-concept, or at lab-scale.