India has a great potential to become one of the largest electric mobility (EV) markets in the world. Apart from EVs, renewable energy (RE) is another area where the country is progressing rapidly. As the growth is expected in EV and RE and along with energy storage industries in coming years, new types of jobs in manufacturing, research, project development and Operations & Maintenance would also be created. India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) acknowledges the importance of skill building and knowledge dissemination which will be required to support this energy transition. IESA has developed specific benefits for institutes and students and it has set a mission to make India a global hub for Research, manufacturing and adoption of advanced energy storage and EV technologies by 2022.
As number of graduated students will only increase in coming years, a greater number of them will be looking for career options as per their choice. In the year of 2017-2018, nearly 5 M students enrolled for BSc and 4 M for BE (as per the report ‘All India Survey on Higher Education 2017-2018’ published by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education, Government of India); many of them will be looking for career options in the coming years. In parallel, the government has set ambitious targets for CO2 emissions reduction and is pushing for this with policies for fast adoption of EVs and integration of RE and stationary storage in the electric grid. As a result, EV and RE and their supporting industries play a big role where students would like to explorer as future job opportunity or higher study or entrepreneurship. Student from different domains can have various roles in these industries.
- MATERIALS
- Electronics
- Electrical
- Mechanical
- Software
- Economics
- Public policy
Keeping these roles in mind, IESA provides an avenue to institutes or students to network with relevant companies and research groups to enter this rapidly growing industry who all are involved in EV and RE and different storage technologies. Following are the specific benefits IESA bought to students and institutes:
- stay informed about latest technology, market and policy developments through IESA webinars
- guidance for research and development
- networking opportunities with relevant industry members
- become eligible to apply for special scholarships, internships and fellowships
- access to specially curated training and capacity building programs (IESA Academy)
- discounts for attending relevant industry and academic events through IESA network
In order to promote fast growth in the energy storage domain, IESA is working on developing an ACCELERATOR initiative. Under this, researchers with innovative technologies can avail the benefits of fabrication, prototyping and industrial testing of their lab-scale setups. Also, key members from the industry can act as mentors to guide young and enthusiastic researchers and assist with commercialization.
To support and encourage various research activity in RE, EV and different storage technologies, IESA has announced competitive fellowships and award. Following are the details
Innovation award
Prize money: Rs. 1,00,000 (1st), Rs. 60,000 (2nd), Rs. 20,000 (3rd)
Purpose: Awarding and supporting development work in building innovative devices containing battery packs for application in defence, agriculture, sanitation and healthcare.
Criteria for selection: This is based on building and demonstration a working prototype device for any of the above-mentioned applications.
Science award
Prize money: Rs. 60,000 (1st), Rs. 40,000 (2nd), Rs. 20,000 (3rd).
Purpose: Recognizing development in new materials and/or battery chemistries.
Criteria for selection: Shortlisting will be done based on impact factor of the journal and overall commercialization potential.
Scholarship
Award money: Rs. 50,000 for covering travel costs for international conference. To apply, candidates should send confirmation email of accepted abstract.
Purpose: Supporting researchers to present their work in international conferences.
Criteria for selection: Conference should be recognized as relevant industry / research event and have good participation from global experts in the field. For oral presentations only.
Special recognition
- Dedicated booth for selected candidates to showcase their development works in India Energy Storage week conference.
- Selected five start-ups will be eligible for automatic entry to IESA accelerator program on energy storage and EV sector.
- Special feature in emerging tech news (ETN) magazine
At present the following institutes/ think tanks are members of IESA, namely: Pune University, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Stanford University, Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), Prayas and ARAI. IESA encourage students, researchers, faculties and institutes to be part of the growing alliance to avail benefits.
