Sep. 22, 2009 — It is always interesting to hear from major companies as far as their interest in energy is concerned. Likewise, listening to Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO of Freescale Semiconductor, at the recently held FTF India 2009 was no different.

One of the points coming out of his keynote was that the smart grid will play a critical role in the development of India’s economy in the future! This is well known to everyone, given India’s power problems in several areas. Hence, all those earlier blog posts about how LEDs and solar can make a difference to India’s energy needs.

India houses a population of over 1.1 billion people – the world’s second largest population. By 2025, India’s urban population is estimated to increase by 50 percent. Where and how will all that massive energy requirement be met?

In this context, Beyer applauded the Indian government, which is investing heavily in new power plants. This includes renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. However, to take advantage of these new sources, there will need to have a new delivery system, or smart grid, that can handle a generation mix with a high percentage of renewable energy sources, he added.

Smart electric meters will be one of the first steps toward establishing two-way communication between the home and the utility companies. Freescale is an industry leader in smart meter technology. It offers low-power and low-cost solutions for single-phase and three-phase meter measurement, said Beyer.

Just before the FTF, I was part of a delegation led by the India Semiconductor Industry, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the UKTI (UK Trade & Investment) for collaboration in several key areas. My next blog will focus on some of that as well.

What I want to mention here is that, perhaps, three key areas that the two governments would be looking at are energy, health care and security.

It also takes me back to a conversation I had in the past with Dr. Patrick Guo-Qiang Lo, director of Nanoelectronics & Photonics Programme, IME, in Singapore, who was discussing some of the applications that would benefit from the use of silicon photonics. One such application is FTTH!

I can’t even start to imagine the kinds of benefits the usage of FTTH would also bring to Indian homes and enable the provision of better health care and security facilities and applications!

In my next blog post, I will talk about some solar-related initiative being undertaken by India. It would probably assist those looking to enter the country.

Pradeep

Sept. 22, 2009