Rahul Walawalkar

Dr. Rahul Walawalkar is President & MD of Customized Energy Solutions (India). He leads the Emerging Technologies domain for Customized Energy Solutions globally, which under his leadership has emerged as a thought leader in the areas of energy storage, renewables, demand response, electric vehicles, and green hydrogen technologies. A strong votary of accelerating scale up of clean energy, energy storage and e-mobility, Rahul founded the India Energy Storage Alliance in 2012 and continues to serve as its President. He served as a board member for Energy Storage Association, USA during 2009-15 and as the Chair for Global Energy Storage Alliance during 2018-20.  Rahul has served on many committees over past 2 decades for shaping regulations and policies around the globe for agencies such as US DOE, Federal Electricity Regulatory Commission (USA), IRENA, World Bank, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (India), Ministry of Power (India), NITI Aayog (India), Central Electricity Authority and Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (India) etc,.  Under Rahul’s leadership, Customized Energy Solutions has received numerous awards including IPPAI Power Innovation Award for the creation of the India Energy Storage Alliance in 2016-17, Brad Roberts Award for outstanding industry contribution by Energy Storage Association (USA) in 2016, USAID’s PACEsetter Fund Award for MICRO initiative in 2016 & 2019 and CII Innovative Energy Services Award for Tata Power Demand Response program in 2012. Rahul holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, a Master’s degree in Energy Management from NYIT, United States, and a B.E. from Walchand College of Engineering, India.