The Open Hand Monument in the city of Chandigarh, where a workshop will be held. The monument was designed by architect Le Corbusier.
Photo: Carlos Zambrano, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
All aboard for the next ISIA trip
The next trip to India within the framework of the ISIA programme will take place on 8–15 May. The schedule includes, among a lot of other activities, workshops in the cities of Hyderabad and Chandigarh.
Three new Swedish companies have been accepted into the programme and are now making their first trip, along with six others that are making their second or third trip.
One of them is Altered, with its innovative water saving solutions that drastically reduce the use of water and energy. Altered uses proprietary technologies to develop products such as the nozzle, tap and shower to reduce the use of water without sacrificing user experience, functionality and design.
“We see a huge potential in the Indian market and our products have attracted a lot of interest there. The extreme urbanization makes our product a perfect fit. We have received good feedback from the government and major stakeholders in the construction and developer industry,” says Mikael Abbhagen, co-founder at Altered.
Smart IoT monitoring
Xlit co-operates with tech partner Modio to offer a secure and continuously updated IoT ecosystem including software and services, paired with local hardware.
The IoT solutions for smarter energy consumption and management include monitoring and control of buildings remotely; unifying data to give the recipient the overall picture and delivering data in a secure, consistent manner for operational, tactical and strategic purposes.
”Xlit’s owners have previous experience from having worked and lived in India and have seen huge potential for its IoT products and solutions for different business verticals and segments in this massive and multifaceted market,” says Elisabeth Ronquist, representing Xlit Group AB.
Storing energy in salt
SaltX has developed and patented a technology that stores energy in inexpensive, highly available salt and subsequently recovers it in the form of heat or cold. SaltX has patented a nano-coating of the salt, allowing energy to be charged and discharged thousands of times. Additionally, SaltX salt is non-corrosive (preventing rust) unlike ordinary salt, while also being non-toxic and recyclable.
SaltX offers three products, the thermal solar collector SunCool, the scalable energy storage technology EnerStore and HeatBoos, a thermochemical heatpump for water and/or space heaters.
“India’s growing economy and its good conditions for renewable energy when it comes to sun and wind means that SaltX products and concepts are well matched. With the help of efficient energy storage, India can become completely self-sufficient and fully utilize the good energy resources from sun and wind,” says Christofer Rhén, vice president Business development at SaltX Technology.
The need for knowledge
Pawan Tahlani, Senior Project Manager at Business Sweden in New Delhi and local Programme Manager for the ISIA programme since 2015, is looking forward to working with the new members of the programme. He is also delighted with the progress the more experienced companies have made during the course of the programme:
“Several of the companies that now make their third and last trip within the programme, have built strong links with partners here and are now ready to go out on the Indian market,” says Pawan Tahlani.
He mentions in particular the great expansion of electrical infrastructure in India in recent years.
“In the last two years, about 24 million homes have been electrified under the Saubhagya scheme. With the rapid expansion follows an increased need for smart grids, meters and other solutions. This opens up many interesting opportunities for Swedish companies, who have great knowledge in this area.”
Workshops and meetings
In May, India conducts parliamentary elections. However, Pawan Tahlani sees no reason to worry that a possible change of government would have any negative effects on India’s work on sustainable change:
“No matter which government we get, the process will continue,” he says.
During the forthcoming journey, two workshops awaits.
“The focus of our workshops is promoting India-Sweden collaborations in green energy. There are also about 100 B2B meetings between Swedish companies and Indian partners planned and we will visit ten different cities during this trip,” says Pawan Tahlani.