The BRICS bloc has taken a major step towards coordinated energy infrastructure development with the official inauguration of the BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage at the 11th BRICS Energy Ministers' Meeting held in Gurugram, India. The establishment of this regional hub signals deepening commitment among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to align their energy systems around shared technological standards and renewable energy integration.
India's Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar framed the centre's launch as essential for advancing collective energy cooperation across the five nations. According to Khattar, the initiative demonstrates a unified determination to foster technological innovation while building energy systems capable of withstanding future demands and supply uncertainties. This framing is particularly significant given the energy security challenges facing developing economies, where grid reliability and infrastructure modernization remain critical bottlenecks to sustained economic growth.
The Digital Centre of Excellence has been designed with multiple operational functions in mind. Its core mandate encompasses facilitating the systematic exchange of technical knowledge and proven practices among member nations, while simultaneously upgrading the professional capabilities of energy sector specialists through training and capacity-building programmes. Additionally, the centre will oversee the implementation of jointly developed projects and strengthen the technical cooperation mechanisms that bind BRICS energy policymakers and practitioners together.
Minister Khattar emphasized that renewable energy sources are becoming fundamental to the energy sector's structural transformation. He outlined a vision of future electrical grids that operate with real-time demand management capabilities, seamlessly absorb large quantities of intermittent renewable generation, integrate advanced energy storage technologies, and empower end-consumers through digital control systems. This conception of the modern grid directly addresses the technical challenges that have historically limited renewable energy penetration in developing economies.
India's own energy transition efforts provide a template for what the Digital Centre might facilitate across BRICS. The country has positioned itself among global leaders in solar and wind energy deployment, commanding significant installed capacity in both sectors. To complement this renewable expansion, India is executing one of the world's largest smart meter installation programmes, a foundational technology for digitalizing energy distribution networks and optimizing grid performance at scale.
Beyond metering infrastructure, India's long-term energy storage strategy reveals the scale of ambition guiding BRICS cooperation. The nation intends to develop approximately 100 gigawatts of pumped-storage hydroelectric capacity from its total viable potential of 260 gigawatts, alongside the establishment of roughly 80 gigawatts of battery energy storage systems. These figures underscore the capital-intensive nature of grid modernization and the rationale for pooling technical expertise and experience across BRICS nations.
For Malaysian policymakers and energy stakeholders, the BRICS initiative carries several implications. As Malaysia pursues its own renewable energy transition through initiatives such as the Renewable Energy (RE) Roadmap and the National Energy Transition Roadmap, the technical standards and best practices developed through the BRICS Digital Centre could provide valuable reference points. Particularly relevant are solutions for grid integration challenges and energy storage deployment strategies that have been tested within comparable economic and technical contexts.
The centre's establishment during India's BRICS chairmanship reflects a structured approach to the bloc's energy agenda. India has identified three strategic pillars: ensuring energy security and sustainability, guaranteeing equitable energy access and distribution, and accelerating technology development and innovation. These priorities directly mirror concerns across Southeast Asia and the broader developing world, where balancing rapid electrification with affordability and environmental stewardship remains persistently challenging.
The Digital Centre of Excellence represents an institutional mechanism for translating shared energy policy objectives into concrete technical outcomes. Rather than remaining at the level of political declarations, member nations have committed to establishing a permanent knowledge-sharing infrastructure. This represents a maturation of BRICS cooperation beyond general statements of intent, embedding energy transition collaboration within an organizational framework designed for sustained engagement.
For regional energy markets like Southeast Asia's, the emergence of BRICS technical cooperation on grid modernization and storage systems introduces a counterweight to existing Western-dominated technology transfer arrangements. As these nations develop and refine solutions tailored to the technical and economic conditions of large developing economies, the resulting technologies and methodologies become more accessible to countries facing similar constraints. Malaysia and other ASEAN members may eventually benefit from interoperability standards and technical best practices that emerge from BRICS collaboration.
The timing of the centre's launch coincides with accelerating global energy transition investments and rising competition for technological leadership in grid and storage domains. By consolidating expertise across five major developing economies representing roughly 30 percent of global population, BRICS is positioning itself as a significant player in shaping how renewable energy infrastructure evolves in the non-Western world. The Digital Centre thus serves not merely as a knowledge repository, but as a potential counterbalance to existing technological dependencies.
