1st Engagement Activity – Global Politics

1st Engagement Activity – Global Politics

16/08/2020

For my first engagement activity, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct an online video-conference (zoom) interview with Mr Rohit Modi, the country head of SB Energy India. SB Energy, a parent company of Softbank, is a global renewable energy centered company that develops and operates several solar grids across the world, having a 7.7GW solar portfolio across India. But what differentiates SB Energy from other renewable energy companies is their ability to develop and progress solar technology at an astonishing accelerated rate. My aim for this engagement was to get a better understanding as to the business model that SB energy currently runs on, and learn more about the initiatives that they have been able to carry out since they entered into the Indian solar market in 2015.

I was amazed by the initiatives created by SB energy in India, from reducing the amount of land per megawatt to adopting advanced technology consisting of machine learning that recognizes faulty solar panels the deploy drones to ensure that their facility is running efficiently. But the purpose behind many of these initiatives is to ensure that the energy reaches every consumer. While many solar facilities come with solar batteries that allow users to store energy, I learned that majority of these solar grids are unable to store extra energy due to a lack of proper storage facilities across the region. It’s for this reason that while solar energy tariffs are much lower than other non-renewable energy sources, that renewable energy is unable to replace other unsustainable sources of energy. The installation of solar grids in wastelands across India ensures that the agricultural sector is not impacted, with a lot of research and development carried out allowing SB energy to reduce the water pollution in solar components from 5 acres per MW to 2.6 acres per MW. These are some of the various points that I learned about during my interview, which has made me optimistic about the future development of solar energy in India.

One of the key points that I took from the discussion, is that a lot of investment (both financially and through research & development) is required if India is to reach there national solar energy goal of 100 GW by 2022. As SB energy is a well-funded global organization, they are able to utilize the advances in technology to their advantage, making immense progress towards both the state government’s goal and their own global solar energy aim.

Zoom Interview Invitation:  

• Here’s a link to a photo of me with Mr. Modi during our interview: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pL3Re2YRyOcHAvwlH7Wn3h_DJ2HCxEzp/view

– Verification of Engagement Activity Document