Comment from Vinod Kala and Joydeep Bose, Asia Energy Labs

Digital energy for impact Rapid energy transition has begun. We are witnessing the classic S-curve of innovation and disruptive change in the energy space and in the next decade new energy models may replace the incumbent ones, gaining market share of 80% or more. This will include renewable electricity replacing traditional fossil-based energy, transportation sector switching to autonomous, electric and on-demand transportation services, and energy efficiency through high efficiency devices and processes. This transition will primarily be driven through rapid and continuing transformation in cost-performance of technologies such as solar PV, wind turbines, energy storage, smart-grids, supported by digital technologies such as computing, data storage, digital imaging, communication networks, internet of things (IoT) and so on. By 2030, therefore, we may witness a world where energy is abundant, skies are clearer, transportation safer and faster, and roads are decongested. The devastating side effects of fossil fuel-based economy such as air pollution, climate change, oil spills, mining deaths, political wars, destruction of biodiversity and so on will be receding quickly. Energy majors such as BP, Shell, Total or utilities such as NextEra, Enel, EDF, Duke, National Grid, Sempra, American Electric and product companies such as ABB, Schneider, Enel X have been actively working on expanding their footprint in clean energy for last five to 10 years and see the inevitability of the “energy transition” and its rapidly accelerating pace. While these energy companies and their corporate venture capital (CVC) arms are investing in data driven technology startups in their portfolios to accelerate the energy transition, the traditional venture capitalists are applying deeptech to energy to harvest new business models and use cases. This is creating a new asset class, which may be the holy grail of impact investments in the next decade. Emerging Asia will be a very attractive marketplace for the new energy businesses Emerging Asia, consisting of South Asia – including India – South East Asia and Australia-New Zealand, will emerge as a very important marketplace for the new energy businesses. The key factors underlying this assessment are a large and growing population base of 2.5 billion people, young demographics which can supply labour to serve global supply chains for next few decades, rapid urbanisation and infrastructure investments (more than 250 smart cities are being developed). The region has $7 trillion of GDP, which is expected to experience the fastest growth globally. The region has large energy imports of $200bn which may grow to US$440bn unless it transitions to…

Subscribe to go deeper

GCV subscribers get access to all our proprietary data and deep-dive articles, as well as the global directory of CVC investors.



Not sure if you have a subscription?