View Point
Dinesh Aggarwal, Joint Managing Director, Panasonic Life Solutions India
“The year 2021 was majorly affected due to the high intensity of the second wave. It has been a tough year on all businesses, though we are seeing an upswing in the manufacturing and services sectors. During Covid our complete focus was on employee well-being, business recovery, and increased engagement. We have set ourselves an ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. We also worked towards creating products and technologies that can provide more comfort, safety and energy savings to our customers.
Panasonic Life Solutions India has had a major convergence of IoT appliances and devices on our integrated platform (MirAIe) and has moved many steps ahead in this year to redefine the future of automation with built in AI for homes and commercial buildings. We have also taken very significant steps towards providing energy management and building management systems. This year we have successfully launched many new series of products including Ziva range of Switches and UNO Plus Switchgear series which highlight safety and security. Additionally, our solar business took a big leap in domestic market and exports and while we augmented our range of modules, we also added solar inverters to our range and will soon introduce residential solar kits for rooftops in our portfolio of sustainable solutions.
Also read: Panasonic Life Solutions India Adds ‘UNO Plus’ Series To Switchgear Portfolio
In 2021, we have shown consistent resilience and in 2022 while we will continue to provide products aligned with the market demand, our focus will remain to contribute towards the sustainability and clean energy goals of India”.
Dinesh Aggarwal was expressing his views on the business climate whilst discussing his company’s achievements in year 2021.
N. Venu, MD & CEO, India & South Asia, Hitachi Energy
- Dec 20, 2021
“The year 2021 saw fresh fervor toward sunrise sectors such as electric vehicles (EVs), datacenters, and renewables- from the government through productivity-linked incentive schemes and from corporates via investment in green businesses. 2022 beckons opportunities in the right direction.
The two years of Covid-19-led unprecedented disruption have ushered in faster adoption of digital power technologies in sectors such as transmission works and rail. Hitachi Energy has had a strong play in metro and rail, power transmission, and renewables this year — we advanced Indian Railways’ mission to achieve net-zero emissions via rail electrification solutions, India’s Power-for-All drive by commissioning one of India’s longest UHVDC transmission links from Raigarh to Pugalur, as well as provided our technology for a multitude of solar and hydro projects alongside to datacenter players propelling India’s Energy Transition.
With India aiming to hit 500 GW in renewable energy by 2030, the pace of development in sunrise sectors will also pick up. We expect industrial CAPEX to pick up only by the second half of 2022. Rail electrification, urban metro, and regional transport system will also drive growth, bringing in fresh opportunities for us.
Also read: Hitachi Energy Automates Power Distribution For New Kolkata Metro Line
Yet challenges ranging from new variants of the Covid-19 virus such as Omicron, high commodity prices, material shortages especially pertaining to semiconductors will likely weigh on market recovery.
We need greater support and stimulus in the power industry, including in EV charging infrastructure, and faster decision-making on transformational projects”.
Excerpted from a company statement where N. Venu expressed his prognosis of 2021 and outlook for 2022.
Shekhar Bajaj, CMD, Bajaj Electricals Ltd
- Dec 9, 2021
“Over the past couple of years, the Power Transmission and Power Distribution business verticals have sharpened their operational focus, ensuring project closures, increased cash flows, reduction in receivables and repayment of most of the debt, whilst simultaneously focusing on health and safety and ESG in general. We believe the time is now ripe to build further on this and review our structures to enable unconstrained business growth for each business segment. We will continue to leverage our legacy and our strengths in our people, project management, operations and manufacturing, to better serve our customers and all stakeholders.”
(Shekhar Bajaj, Chairman & Managing Director, Bajaj Electricals Ltd, was quoted saying this in a company statement. The statement, dated December 9, 2021, announced that the board of directors of Bajaj Electricals Ltd (BEL) has authorized the BEL management to evaluate and recommend the proposal of housing the Power Transmission and Power Distribution business verticals as a standalone/independent legal entity.)
Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group
- Oct 19, 2021
“While net zero targets are much needed, a company’s sustainability initiatives must be aligned with the nation’s sustainability goals. One must recognize that India has already demonstrated its commitment through the bold stand taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the 2015 COP21 summit and India has emerged as one of the most responsible major nations in the world when it comes to addressing climate change. However, at the heart of any nation’s sustainability journey lies the principle of equitable growth, and a net zero number unaligned with a nation’s development agenda may end up creating greater disequilibrium across the global sustainability initiatives. We are putting money where our mouth is, and the portfolio companies of Adani are leading the way with investment plans to honour the nation’s commitment.”
Gautam Adani said this while speaking to business leaders on the sidelines of the UK’s Global Investment Summit. Organized by the UK government, the Global Investment Summit was held on October 19, 2021, at the Science Museum, London. It featured Prime Minister Boris Johnson, members of the royal family, British MPs, technologists and global investors.
Prabhajit Kumar Sarkar, MD & CEO, Power Exchange India Ltd
- Oct 7, 2021
“Under the leadership of the Ministry of Power and with the contribution of all key stakeholders spanning various arms of the Government of India, Regulatory bodies like CERC and SEBI and organizations like PXIL and others, a ten year old regulatory jurisdiction issue regarding power markets has now been fully clarified and resolved. It is a significant achievement by the Ministry of Power in bringing together all the stakeholders and in a cooperative manner lead the resolution of this hitherto intractable issue.
This paves the way for introduction of various delivery-based contracts with longer duration on PXIL. distribution companies and other large consumers would be able to utilise such contracts to better plan their portfolio requirements in a more efficient and transparent manner. Such contracts effected through the power exchange would ensure payment timeliness and guarantees.
Financial contracts including electricity derivatives can also now be launched by exchanges regulated by SEBI, thus paving the way for suppliers and consumers to hedge their power transaction risks effectively. This is a major inflection point for the power sector and especially the power markets in our country and we look forward to serving all power consumers in the most efficient manner.”
Prabhajit Kumar Sarkar expressed this view shortly after the Supreme Court order of October 7, 2021, that settled the long-pending dispute between SEBI and CERC on the issue of regulatory jurisdiction of electricity derivatives. (Read background story)
Also Read: Exclusive T&D India interview with Prabhajit Kumar Sakar (July 2021)
Animesh Damani, Managing Partner, Artha Energy Resources
- Sep 19, 2021
“The new recommendation by the GST council, increasing the proposed tax to 12 per cent for renewable energy projects, will create a fresh set of challenges for the sector to address. Compared to the earlier 5 per cent, this is a significant increase and is bound to impact both the ongoing and upcoming projects.
N. Venu, MD & CEO, India and South Asia, Hitachi ABB Power Grids
- Aug 24, 2021
“The National Monetization Pipeline is likely to be positive for the chosen sectors if it is orchestrated well, with seamless regulatory support and the right ecosystem to meaningfully monetize the assets.”
Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Managing Director, CLP India
- Aug 13, 2021
“Congratulations to the country on crossing 100 GW of renewable energy capacity. This certifies our position as one of the leaders in the Energy Transition of the World. This is also a testament to the power of big ambitions and ideas, and the power of leadership of the Prime Minister and this government. Barely 10 years back, a 100 GW Renewables number would’ve appeared fanciful!”
(Rajeev Ranjan Mishra expressed this view on India’ very recently crossing the milestone of 100 GW of installed renewable energy capacity.)
A.M. Naik, Group Chairman, Larsen & Toubro
- Aug 5, 2021
The outlook for FY 2021-22 is one of cautious optimism, with the country’s GDP regaining positive territory thanks to the base effect in the first half, followed by robust growth in the second. We therefore believe the recovery is ‘delayed’ and not ‘derailed’.
Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Power
- Jul 5, 2021
“From a growth perspective, the company has a clear plan with focus on renewables and distribution businesses.
Within the renewables segment, the company continues to build both the renewables’ utilities and consumer renewables businesses. As a utility-scale generator of renewable energy, the company continues to grow its EPC solar business. The company intends to add additional capacity to grow to 15 GW size in the coming few years. The Company currently has the highest ever EPC order book and is expanding solar cells and modules manufacturing capacity. It was also won over 1 GW renewables capacity projects during the year.
In the power distribution segment, under challenging operating environment, the company successfully completed the acquisition of three distribution license areas in Odisha and one more in April this financial year. In the first year itself, strong progress has been made and total number of consumers has increased to 12 million. The company now distributes power in Mumbai, Delhi, Ajmer and entire state of Odisha.
The company is on an ambitious path of sustainable growth. It would continue to evaluate various growth options in both renewables, transmission and distribution businesses.”
This quote has been extracted from the Chairman’s speech delivered at the 102nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Tata Power held on July 5, 2021, via video conferencing. All references to “the company” in the quote stand for Tata Power.