‘Schneider eyes a key role in India’s sustainability goals’
Premium- Its strategy in India is consistency and continuous investments, says CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire
NEW DELHI : Schneider Electric plans to play a key role in India’s sustainability goals and transition towards cleaner energy, and offer hydrogen solutions in line with the government’s focus on the production of green hydrogen, said its chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Jean-Pascal Tricoire.
Speaking in an interview, Tricoire said the company’s strategy in India is “consistency and continuous investments" considering that it is the third major business destination after the US and China.
The global automation and energy management giant aims to double its exports from India over the next four years, for which it would also expand its facilities, he said.
“We are expanding our factories. Last week, I inaugurated a new plant in Vadodara. It’s not the only place where we are expanding. We are expanding a lot of our factories and more importantly, we are ramping up our collaboration with local suppliers. We help to ramp up those in terms of capacity, technical capability, especially helping them to globalize in terms of certification," he said.
Tricoire has launched a new entity GreeNext to help industries and buildings produce electricity locally through microgrids and also provide storage solutions. Last December, the company along with Singapore’s Temasek announced the launch of the GreeNext joint venture to provide sustainable and resilient energy solutions to commercial and industrial customers through solar and battery hybrid microgrid technology.
On India’s plans to become a hub for battery manufacturing and storage and green hydrogen, Tricoire said: “We already are one of the champions of battery storage in India. We have several factories producing specific batteries for India. We shall certainly support hydrogen solutions in the future."
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of a ‘National Hydrogen Mission’ on 15 August, 2021, the government unveiled the first part of the new green hydrogen policy in February, promising cheaper renewable power, fee waiver for inter-state power transmission for 25 years for projects commissioned before June 2025, land in renewable energy parks, and mega manufacturing zones to help local industries wean themselves off fossil fuels.
Tricoire said Schneider Electric is making significant investments in the digital space in India towards research and development, development of technology and applications, supporting integration of the most advanced industries, and helping creation of a smart ecosystem.
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Highlighting the company’s focus on domestic manufacturing, he said about 90% of products supplied in India are manufactured and designed locally, given its “unique requirements".
On the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on its global operations, he said: “We do 2% of our business between Ukraine and Russia, and it has been impacted."
He, however, added that the crisis has made many countries realize the need to be self-dependent in terms of energy requirement and the requirement to move to cleaner and renewable energy.
“Many countries in the world have realized that they were very dependent on fossil fuels, gas and oil. The price and scarcity of those could impact their whole development. We will accelerate the transition to more efficiency because everybody will have to face the need to reduce energy consumption. We will push also to accelerate massively the movement to electrification, on clean electrification particularly, because it is the only way to reduce dependence," Tricoire said.
On the impact of the pandemic, he said although the company’s operations have rebounded, some disruptions still exist. He added that the pandemic accelerated the digitization process and also made people think more on climate change and the need for shifting to clean energy.