Distributech 2025 convened industry leaders to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in energy today: balancing rapidly growing demand with grid resilience. From building and transportation electrification to an AI-driven surge in computing power, the modern grid faces unprecedented stress. As utilities worldwide race to upgrade infrastructure and integrate digital solutions, platforms like Distributech offer a vital forum for collaboration and innovation.

Against this backdrop, Tata Power and TCS unveiled EnerUni, an integrated energy management platform co-created to harness contextual expertise and digital prowess in a knowledge-hub session titled “A Unique Gateway to an Intelligent Energy Management Platform”. The sessions that followed spanned foundational grid challenges, the EV revolution, AI-enabled optimizations, and the practical rollout of end-to-end solutions. The insights shared here reflect not only the scale of the task but also a clear roadmap for utilities and C&I customers to power tomorrow’s energy ecosystem.

The surge in electrification across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors is redefining utility priorities. As buildings migrate from fossil fuels to electric heating and transportation shifts toward electric vehicles, grids must adapt swiftly to variable loads, bidirectional flows, and green energy integration. Preparing for this wave requires both technological upgrades and strategic planning to preserve reliability and avoid strain.

Highlighting the grid stress and new demand, Sabyasachi Chandra, VP and Business Head, Utilities Business Americas at TCS, noted, “We discussed about the impact of electrification, the grid, the stress that it creates, the new demand, how the grid needs to prepare itself to manage the huge demand that is coming from building electrification, transportation electrification, as well as the AI boom.”

Electric vehicles represent a transformative frontier in mobility and power demand. While current EV adoption in many markets remains below 5 percent, projections point to triple-digit growth in the coming five years. Utilities must anticipate load spikes, design robust charging infrastructures, and rethink distribution architecture to maintain stability and prevent bottlenecks.

Illustrating this point, Sanjay Banga, President of Tata Power Company, noted, “In India, if we see, the EV penetration is less than 5%, but in the next five years we are finding that it is going to be more than 15%. What its impact would be on grid resiliency, how our network will be changed considering this EV penetration.”

Advanced analytics, AI, and digital twin technologies are unlocking new efficiencies by modeling grid behavior, forecasting demand, and prescribing targeted interventions. By simulating infrastructure performance and consumer usage patterns, utilities can identify hotspots, optimize asset dispatch, and reduce both operational costs and emissions footprints.

According to Regu Ayyaswamy, SVP and Global Head, IoT DE at TCS, “What we are able to do today is using AI and AI data and digital twins, we can optimize industries, we can optimize homes, which are the consumers of this energy and that allows us to reduce the emission. We engaged in several dialogues with our customers and partners in our booth and we discussed how we can shape the future of utilities and how we can partner in their race to tomorrow.”

Recognizing the need for turnkey solutions, Tata Power and TCS co-created EnerUni - a platform built on deep industry insight and expansive service capabilities. EnerUni combines renewable power sourcing, real-time trading, load management, and AI-driven analytics into a unified dashboard, empowering customers to unlock value across generation, distribution, and consumption.

To which Sabyasachi Chandra said, “See, what makes EnerUni really unique is our deep contextual knowledge and our full services capabilities. We understand the customer sentiment. So, we really understand the big picture, how to implement this and how to help the customer unlock the benefit across the value chain.”

Commercial and industrial (C&I) customers seek comprehensive visibility over their energy portfolios—from procurement of green power to on-site generation and grid exchanges. An integrated platform like EnerUni simplifies trading, hedging, and consumption forecasting, enabling cost savings, risk mitigation, and sustainability reporting within a single interface.

As per Sanjay Banga, “This is an opportunity for Tata Power because we can give them renewable power, we can help them in trading of power, we can help them to manage power. And this is how we thought that there has to be a solution where the C&I customer have an entire view of the power.”

True transformation arises when domain expertise converges with digital innovation. Tata Power’s deep understanding of the Indian energy landscape, combined with TCS’s leadership in digital transformation, has resulted in a solution that is both technically robust and market aligned. Collaboration across technical, domain, and customer-experience teams was instrumental in shaping EnerUni’s end-to-end capabilities.

According to Dwarka Srinath, CDIO at Tata Power, “First is Tata Power being the leader in the Indian energy sector has got a very deep domain experience in this business. TCS, being a pioneer in digital initiatives and digital transformation, this synergy effectively in the form of EnerUni has launched an integrated end-to-end energy management portfolio for utilities as well as C&I customers. I think it was an incredible journey between the teams of Tata Power and TCS, both domains, technical, and the team who provided the inputs of what the market needs.”

Distributech 2025 underscored how rapid electrification, from homes and industries to transportation, is reshaping the demands placed on power networks. As electric vehicles surge and data-driven technologies like AI and digital twins mature, utilities and energy consumers alike must embrace both strategic planning and advanced solutions to ensure reliability and efficiency. Integrated platforms that bring together generation, trading, consumption analytics, and grid health monitoring will be pivotal in navigating this transition.

By combining infrastructure upgrades with intelligent, end-to-end management approaches, stakeholders can optimize resource use, curb emissions, and bolster grid resilience. The path forward lies in collaboration across sectors, uniting domain expertise with digital innovation to create an energy ecosystem that is adaptable, sustainable, and ready for tomorrow’s challenges.