ep Group has been actively supporting India’s focus on climate and environment since 2017. It was then we established a joint venture with India’s Super Energy Services Company Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) to invest into energy transition businesses in the UK and India. Having recently returned from a nine day trip to India with fellow ep group steward Leo Bedford, I felt compelled to share a short insight into what we experienced.
We visited Mumbai, Poone and Delhi and met with several associates, and as always, I was impressed by India’s entrepreneurial spirit and the amount of innovation, particularly in the energy transition and e-mobility. The country’s battery industry is booming – even more so since its recent discovery of lithium reserves. We visited several battery companies and signed a Collaboration Agreement to work on projects together. This is particularly important given mounting pressure to reduce battery supply chain dependency on China.
In Maharashtra – one of India’s most industrialised states – we met with MahaPreit, a leading renewable energy and infrastructure organisation. We were pleased to see their strong interest in our unique business operating system, ESCO-in-a-box®. It provides all the tools needed to establish energy service companies (ESCOs) and enable regions to decarbonise and achieve their net zero targets. We think ESCO-in-a-box®, could be a tool to kick-start the seemingly ever-nascent ESCO business in India. We are working towards it being introduced in at least one Indian state in 2023.
We were also fortunate to meet with senior transport officials, including Mr Ashish Kundra, the Principal Secretary, Transport Ministry, Delhi government, to talk sustainable transport, and held further discussions with partners about creating an e-bus financing vehicle. This builds on the great work of Convergence Energy Services Limited, a subsidiary of EESL, which last year tendered the procurement of more than 5,000 e-buses. The target now is to finance the next 10,000 buses.
Our trip identified a number of exciting opportunities for collaboration between India and the UK – now we’re back, we look forward to advancing them further.
Story by epgroup
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