Energetica India Magazine December 2020

and storage offers a proven and viable investment. This is expected to augment farmer’s income as the agri waste is val- ued and also paid for. A potential and futuristic investment is energy crop plantation which is not even seen any action for now. India with large track of unutilized land can offer opportu- nities for energy crops such as Bamboo, Napier grass or many newer varieties. This segment is likely to get government support in the form of capital subsidy for entrepreneurs. The clean energy sector is likely to gain importance and attention from all stake- holders and players in the value chain. This is manifested from entry of glob- al majors such as Shell into this field as strategic investors. Many CSR and agri focused funds find the businesses in clean energy actually related to ag- riculture as they support farmers and augment rural income with employment generation. The effect percolates to the entire chain and many professional players set up this to take up this as a business. As the unorganized set up becomes more orga- nized, it improves compliance level and transparency and professionalism in the segment. This is a pre-requisite for any of the investors to even consider evaluat- ing the business for investment. A strong proxy to this can be the ethanol manufacturing industry in Brazil which over a period of time became mainstay and equally important like Sugar indus- try. India, being agrarian economy would always promote businesses, which aug- ment farmer income and complement the way it’s done. Thus for example cotton stalk after harvesting burnt in the fields and also cost farmers for this disposal. However, a viable system of collection can convert the same to good quality biofuel and also help farmer get extra income instead of disposal cost. Many marquees corporate have har- nessed clean energy across their facil- ities to reduce the carbon footprint and for better compliance of pollution and environment norms. Case in point is Hindustan Unilever, which has adopted usage of biomass fuel at most of their manufacturing plants as well as vendor plants across India. The company intends to reduce usage of fossil fuel shift to clean fuel such as bio- mass briquettes or pellets and has been shifting the balance facilities every year. Government’s hard stance on usage of forest wood as a fuel is forcing many tra- ditional users to shift to biofuels. Since most of the drivers have been impacting the sector very recently – like past three years, the biofuels sector is poised for exponential growth and hence the relat- ed investment too. In a nutshell, we sell growing opportunity to invest in the clean energy sector for entrepreneurs as well as investors. We expect reputed players from the energy industry to enter Indian energy market as strategic investors with an objective to reduce their carbon footprint, which in turn would incentivize the financial inves - tors to take this opportunity seriously. POWER SECTOR 59 energetica INDIA- December_2020