India crucial for innovation, quicker battery storage systems: Fluence exec

Dhanya Rajeswaran talks about the US-based company's Bengaluru location, the largest, fastest-growing hub worldwide, and the only place where it is called the Global Innovation Center

(This interview has been updated)  Battery storage systems have become the most critical part of renewable energy, and Fluence is betting on India to drive innovation and create a supply chain for its global battery storage solutions business, says Dhanya Rajeswaran, global vice-president and managing director for India, Fluence, an offspring of Siemens and AES. In a video interview with S Dinakar, she talks about the US-based company’s Bengaluru location, the largest, fastest-growing hub worldwide, and the only place where it is called the Global Innovation Center. Edited excerpts:

 

Can you talk about Fluence and its projects in India?

 

AES and Siemens came together in 2018 to form Fluence to address the market for battery energy storage systems. We went public, traded on NASDAQ and over the course of the last few years, have achieved 38 gigawatts hours of storage around the world across 48 markets. And one of the unique things about us is starting right from the hardware, our enclosures, and the storage system itself to having our own proprietary OS, an asset management tool and then the bidding software to help customers optimise. So, we're full stack in that sense.

 

Why did you come to India?

 

Predominantly, our focus on India has been to develop the local talent base to enable global product development, as well as a global supply chain. We call ourselves “Global Innovation Center” (GIC), which for the first time ever has a product that is truly conceptualised out of India, developed out of India and prototyped out of India.

 

Is this particular product developed in India an energy storage system?

 

A battery energy storage system- we call it the Smartstack and it delivers up to 7.5 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy density. In fact, we've already signed our first Smartstack project. 

How big is the GIC in Bengaluru?

 

By the time we finish this year, we will be 500. This team that we’ve built in India is predominantly product development and supply chain professionals and an engineering and a systems integration team in digital and software development.

 

Where was all the development happening before you started in India?

 

Largely US and Europe, Germany in particular. But India is now the single largest office location for Fluence and the only GIC for Fluence globally.

 

Why did you set up GIC in India? Was it to save costs or to innovate?

 

The mandate for which India was set up was to actually accelerate our ability to bring products to market quicker and generate value.

 

Do you find India GIC giving value compared to what you were doing earlier?

 

Significantly. One, like I said, Smartstack. For the first time, we're talking about a speed to market, which is less than 10 months. Our older generation products used to be two years plus.

 

Are you developing a supply chain for batteries, enclosures in India?

 

Definitely, for the hardware components. These manufacturers can be a key part of our global supply chain.

 

The industry says Indian engineers lack skills. Do you think so?

 

The skill gap for our industry in particular is a real thing because not too many colleges teach this. But finding 500 solid people out of Bengaluru is definitely not an issue. And this year, we've expanded into campuses.

 

Do you sell your systems in India?

 

No, we don't sell directly into India. The India market is huge, but also super price sensitive. At this stage, we focus on India to be our talent play, and build a supply chain for the world.

 

What can the Indian government do to encourage GICs?

 

From a government perspective, I think there is a need for a very strong testing and certification infrastructure that can be developed within India.