In the early 2000s, Delhi's power grid was in crisis: daily outages, poor power quality, and losses exceeding half of all electricity due to obsolete equipment and theft. Utilities were paid for only a fraction of the power they delivered, leaving no money to modernize a nearly 100-year-old distribution system. The result was a downward spiral that affected millions of residents and businesses.
According to a first-hand account by Mini Shaji Thomas, an electrical engineering professor in Delhi, the turnaround came through a sustained government and utility effort over 25 years. By 2026, losses had dropped to 5–6 percent, on par with France and Belgium, while the reliability index climbed from roughly 70 percent to over 99.9 percent. The article credits better infrastructure and accountability, though it does not specify which hardware or software upgrades drove the improvement.
The author argues that Delhi's experience offers lessons for other regions with heavy grid losses, including parts of Albania, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Estonia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Venezuela. For a compute and hardware audience, the case underscores how grid modernization—whether through sensors, automated controls, or simple equipment replacement—can turn a failing system into a dependable one. The source does not provide technical details on the digital or smart-grid components, so the exact role of computing hardware remains unstated.