Every dollar or energy saved is what you don't need to produce: Sharma

We have built almost 580 vocational training centres, where we have trained almost 300,000 plus youths so far, says Deepak Sharma, zone president, Greater India, MD & CEO of Schneider Electric India

The first phase of Schneider Electric’s manufacturing plant in Hosur will be ready by January 2026. The French company, known for its energy management and automation solutions, has been constantly innovating and growing its India footprints with multiple brands. Deepak Sharma, zone president, Greater India, MD & CEO of Schneider Electric India, spoke to Pranjal Sharma in an interview about the firm’s growth strategy. Edited excerpts  The role of technology in managing energy is becoming far bigger and complex. How is Schneider helping the industry manage energy?

 

We can talk a lot about the generation part, but the equally important challenge is on the consumption part. Every dollar or every energy saved is actually what you don’t need to produce. The technologies that Schneider brings to the supply side is a big part of our story. The solutions we offer are around optimising the energy usage.

 

It helps us to make the energy more sustainable and green, so that we can deliver the sustainable goals or net zero goals of society, our corporates and our country. We are also accelerating our investments in startups, so we can also participate and contribute in the development of the next phase of technology shift. The story of Schneider is not doing everything alone but using the wider network of our ecosystem.

 

What is the strategy on energy storage and battery related systems?

 

We have been doing this already for almost 14 years. We have a company under the brand name called Luminous, where we do home energy storage. And we’re committed to growing that business in the country. But beyond that, we are also doing a lot of storage for our other businesses, like data centres. And with all our engineering capabilities in the country we’re also working on the next chemistries. Also, we want to speed up from pure residential to grid storage, to storage in the industrial units.

 

Schneider India is contributing to talent globally. Within the country, where do you see your plan on reskilling?

 

We have built almost 580 vocational training centres, where we have trained almost 300,000 plus youths so far. (Earlier) they could not get the privilege of entering the right college or institutes to get training on automation and electrification, so that they can start working on real use case. We want to accelerate and further invest in vocational training in the country. Today, with our almost 38,000 plus employees in our 31 factories, we hope to expand and serve the country’s development

 

Where do you see Schneider Electric in India in terms of new initiatives in the next five years?

 

We all believe in India's growth story. India’s growth would need acceleration of the technologies, digitisation of the technologies and changing manner of energy usage today. Our role is to connect the dots of the user, the producers by bringing smart technologies which are digitised. India is one of the biggest hubs for the group for AI development for the group for these technologies. And actually Schneider India is one of the four global hubs for the group and has almost 6,000 plus digital and R&D engineers only working for the firm. 

 

We export from India to 30 countries, both hardware and software, and we’re also a very strong backbone of the group for providing digital architectures or digital solutions for solving worldwide customer problems.