New Delhi: The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) marked its 53rd Foundation Day on Wednesday by opening a two-day international conference on making the Indian power sector artificial intelligence (AI) enabled. The CEA has already formed a team of 54 AI enthusiasts and brand ambassadors, the Ministry of Power said in a statement. “They will take it forward in all areas of power sector,” the statement said. All power utilities may also set up dedicated AI teams of their own, it added.
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The conference-cum-exhibition, held at the Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi, brought the CEA’s anniversary events and its AI agenda onto a single stage. The inaugural session saw the launch of the CEA’s Vidhyut Dwar Portal and the release of the CEA Manual on Transmission Planning Criteria, 2026. CEA employees were also given awards for outstanding performance and contributions.
Union Power Minister Manohar Lal and Union New and Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi conveyed their messages on the occasion. Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy Shripad Yesso Naik and Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada attended the inauguration. Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Additional Secretary Mayank Tewari addressed the gathering, and CEA Chairperson Ghanshyam Prasad set the context for the two days.
The opening day’s discussions converged on one point, according to the ministry. Participants stressed “the need to move from isolated technology demonstrations towards prioritised, implementable use cases supported by reliable data, interoperability, appropriate safeguards, institutional capability and measurable performance indicators.” The deliberations are meant to inform practical pathways for adopting AI at scale across the sector, the statement said.
That question was taken up in six parallel sessions spanning the electricity value chain, from power plants to rooftops. On the generation side, discussions focused on how AI could optimise combustion and heat rates, support predictive maintenance and help conventional stations run more flexibly as renewable energy (RE) expands. The transmission session looked further down the chain. It covered network planning, drone-based inspection, dynamic line rating and decision support for restoring the grid after a blackout.
At the consumer end, the growing volume of smart-meter data was the starting point. Applications in distribution, such as outage detection, loss analytics and billing, “may support more reliable supply, lower losses and more responsive consumer services,” the statement said. A separate session on rooftop solar and microgrids examined feeder-level forecasting, demand response and the aggregation of rooftop panels, batteries and electric vehicles.
The sessions also set limits on how far AI should go. Regulators discussed using AI to review tariff filings, validate submissions and monitor compliance. The same discussion concluded that AI “may function as a human-supervised decision-support tool and may not replace statutory judgment, procedural fairness or regulatory accountability,” the statement said.
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Participants in the transmission session raised the groundwork that scaling would need. They pointed to data, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, governance and capacity building, the statement said. In the session on RE integration, the focus was on forecasting variable generation and coordinating renewable assets through virtual power plants to keep a flexible grid reliable.
