People often think to switch to renewable energy resources like solar energy but fail to realize its importance and end up using the non-renewable ones. Solar energy is a green and clean resource of energy that is environment friendly and saves the planet from pollution. Many people understand the importance of solar energy but do not know how to operate it or they do not have a suitable infrastructure for it.
There are numerous green energy providers who help these people. SafEarth is one such green energy provider, which was established by two enthusiasts, Harshit Poddar, Co-founder and Director along with Anuvrat Saboo, Co-founder of the company. They bootstrapped SafEarth to make people understand the importance of sustainable future with green energy. Harshit and Anuvrat, started working in the field of renewable energy while they were in college
In the following interview, Harshit and Anuvrat will share about their journey at SafEarth and how they transformed the challenges encountered into opportunities.
Following are the highlights of interview:
Please brief our audience about your company, its values, vision, and mission.
SafEarth provides software as a service platform that helps industries in shifting to clean energy. Most people who will buy a distributed energy plant in 21st century have never bought one before. As a result, a user does not have the required technical, financial, or operational experience to buy and operate a solar power plant. The SafEarth platform helps these users in getting the right solar plant and deliver the best value out of the asset.
The mission of the company is to build the country’s go to renewable energy platform.
The vision of the company is to build the world’s go to sustainability platform.
As a company, we hold values such as honesty and transparency in very high regards. We believe in optimizing for customer experience. Above everything, sustainability is at the heart of everything that we do at SafEarth.
Brief us about the featured person and their journey in the green energy space.
When we first found out about the new modes of financing solar power projects, it was music to our ears. We realized that the solar industry is now going through a rapid phase of transformation, and this will create multiple opportunities in the field of sustainability. We wanted to be a part of this change and as a result, we started working at this startup.
During this time, we were going to other colleges and industries to ask them to shift to solar power. Mind you, at the time, we were just 20-year-olds, still in college and trying to sell a product that would last 25 years. As a result, people were not very receptive towards us.
However, we didn’t lose heart. Instead, we doubled down the hard work. In the next two years, we met nearly 1000 industries and got a chance to evaluate the value proposition from the users’ perspective. That is when we realized that there exists a massive structural flaw in the industry and to solve these flaws, we started SafEarth.
What kind of green solutions or services does your company provide?
SafEarth provides an online marketplace and project management tool to accelerate the transition to clean energy. The company uses these products to optimize and switch to clean energy.
What kind of challenges have you faced industry-wise?
In India, most industries do not have very good credit history. This ensures that they are not able to get the required access to finance. Additionally, many companies have not invested into their long-term infrastructure and as a result, they too can’t buy these solar plants.
Being in the green energy business, how important do you think sustainability is? How are you contributing to a sustainable future through your company?
We genuinely believe that the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for our generation is to build a cleaner and more sustainable planet. As a result, sustainability is at the heart of everything that we are doing at SafEarth. The company is proud of the fact that in the financial year 2021-22, our plants will save over 70,000 tons of carbon emissions. Over the next five years, we hope to take this number close to 1 billion tons of CO2 emissions.
What would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the green energy business?
The first thing that we wish, we knew seven years back was a little more about customer psyche. Many entrepreneurs develop clean products that are more expensive than their non-sustainable counterparts. We feel that consumers would be ready to accept these ‘green premiums’ or the additional cost of these sustainable products. We couldn’t be farther from the truth.
In reality, no product with a substantial green premium ever reaches scale. To make sustainability a central theme of our daily lives, we need products that are at par in terms of cost with their non-sustainable alternatives.
Where do you envision yourself and your company to be in the long run and what are your future goals?
In the next ten years, we aim to build the ‘Operating Backbone’ for deployment and management of solar power plants. This would include building a network of skilled and unskilled people employed in operating these plants, development of technologies that are needed to monitor and operate these plants. Essentially, in the long run, we are looking to decentralize power generation and make it more customer centric and sustainable.
What is the current scenario of the green energy space pertaining to India?
In India, the green energy industry is at major crossroads. While we are making massive progress in utility scale solar plants, we are lagging much behind in the distributed rooftop solar plants. This is because of the massive challenges, which exists in this space. In terms of solving these challenges, there are three major steps, which we would recommend.
First, would be a company-wide policy on distributed solar. Today, all states have their own policies, and these policies are often not structured to promote solar power. As a result, solar is not growing as fast as it should. What instead required is a national policy that has the required provisions to promote clean energy adoptions. Next, we would recommend the involvement of our banks and other financial institutions in the financing of solar projects.
There is a massive credit gap in the market, and this slows the adoption of clean energy. Lastly, we would recommend a national repository of plant performance, maintained and managed by the MNRE. This would allow users and industry participants to filter out companies, which are doing good work from the ones, which aren’t.
