Exclusive Interview With Devesh Sharma, Director & CEO, UTEX New Energy.

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: hello viewers we have with us mr devish sharma director and ceo of u-tex new energy a group company of pagaria group sir can you please share your journey so far for the renewable and your [00:00:22] Devish Sharma: personal journey i am when i passed my engineering in 1994 i joined a company called g electric video jet division so the company was clubbed with the german technology so many digital petrol pumps digital weighing scales and uh inkjet printing on the bottling on the all the kind of bottling plant because the government command it was from manufacturing date expiry date and the sales sales price should be mentioned so from there i started my journey after that i joined for a for a three to four years a company called bottle optical disc so in that we set up a magnetic tape plant and cd and dvd plants and digital studios and digital tool rooms digitizers and then i i i joined a company called multimedia masters and machinery a philips company in switzerland so i went to switzerland and the same time mozerbeer came into picture so then i've been appointed as a project manager for mozerbeer from my parent company from switzerland so amni mozerbeer cd dvd cdr dvdr hd dvd formats yes boss we have done lot of projects since until 2003 so i was based in switzerland in germany germany i was there in a company called sti gamma tech so i learned automation step 7 plc automations chemical robotics digital formations lab chemical strategies and the process plants so in at that time we we set up when we were setting up a mozerbeer plant that was i think one of the finest plant in the history of india we developed clean room we developed hvac systems and epoxy floorings so it was a beautiful company that was done in those time even it's difficult to find those companies in these days but now it's with the upcoming technology the cell plant and and the semiconductor the similar process has been adaptive in the coming industries after that i started my own company in singapore called estenam singapore so we were representing sony we representing philips hexicon and then we multiplied our office in singapore indonesia malaysia thailand and we were doing multiple market middle east mina market gcc markets russia european markets so all in optical media because though those time the data storage was a very uh critical parameter on those and cd was the cheapest and the best reliable medium to store the data after that in 2007 or 8 i realized that digital formation of data is going on the digital format in the cloud pijara tha so i mean like we need this is the time to change your strategies so i started led led business and subsequently moved to the solar business so in the solar industry we started container solution for the inverters for one megawatt hour one megawatt container solutions we introduced with a company called chc and we with the chinese company i was a director there i for for almost four to five years there after that i was involved in a steel company called engine and we we have there was a lot of scarcity on those days in the in the power sector because structures and tracker was the biggest issue was all those times because the first structure was not getting developed the in-house manufacturing in india was very less so most of the structure was coming from china so at that time i was supplying lot of structures and infra structures products to companies like tata lnt sterling wilson adani power we have done multiple projects jackson nlc and four term and many more companies you know so we have done a fantastic job until 2017 when and when the government induced the policy to put up the duty on the finished structures from china so that was the time the all the structure got stopped and parallelly i was involved as a sales director company called satwi greens toshki i was handling the sales and uh getting uh getting uh getting uh uh getting the approval in the ipp sector so we have done azure power ke saath i mean lnt ke saath kia and multiple company we have done with satwi greens so satwi was for a very very new brand at that time nobody knew what satwi was so we gave them a market subsequently then after that i was i joined a company called dmgc which is one of the finest company in in china so i was supple we were supplying the solar cells mono perk and then top phone cells and we were supplying majorly to the all tier one company like data we were supplying i didn't say we were supplying and many more and then so i started the gcc market the mina market dubai dubai we have done multiple things in selling our modules and we were the one of the major supplier in the european market and the dmc modules and the cells as well and after that i started one for a short time recycling business in surat and parallelly i was doing consultation and set up some module companies in rasal khema and that too again in uae in the year 2025 starting i joined company called inox solar so inox solar i was the first employee who started the company and then we set up three gigawatt of module factory and then we set up we were we were setting up the cell plant in duncanal starting from zero for some reasons i have to move out from inox and now i've joined utex new energy limited a company which is owned by pagaria group of companies pagaria group is totally based in nadpur and they are phenomenally they are into multiple sector to some reason because of our chairman's vision you know mr mr omish pagariaji he don't come up more in the front uh he believed more on the working culture and always busy and involved in from starting from zero to a finished product here you have extensive knowledge on civil infra pb and setting up multiple factories the total verticals we are working is 51 verticals totally different segmentations they are having multiple hospitals they are into new tech safeties infra projects real state projects they are into lighting and they are into ai quantum synthetics which is one of the biggest platform for the ai infrastructure we are also developing many data centers and there are two green data centers so which the water requirement is absolutely zero which will totally change the scenario because water necessity in setting of the data center is phenomenally very high so whereas in in our company when we are setting the data center under utex water necessity is completely zero so not only data center we are also an ev infrastructure we have acquired some more companies on the ev segments or ev bikes and then also we are into crockery segmentations and now my segmentation right now which i'm very much focusing is in the battery energy storage and the infrastructure we have recently tied up with the company called encore technologies which is headed by mr nikhil i know this mr nikhil for a very long time he's a very hardcore professional and has done multiple plant setups so we have given him a task that uh we will set up initially in four phases the first phase will come with 5.5 gigawatt hour so that which entire output will get is total 5 gigawatt hour in order to and in order to establish this company for 20 gigawatt hour we have identified in nadapur on the national highway of nadapur jabalpur exactly on the highway 45 acres of land where we have storage raw material unfinished unfinished both the containers in 45 acres of land total is 20 gigawatt hour now because of the indigenous productivity as per the pm vision we are also setting up 10 gigawatt hour cell line prismatic cell lines the type is already there for some reason i cannot reveal the name with technology but it definitely is not a chinese company so because we respect our country uh rules and as per the rules chinese partner is prohibited so we have tied up with a one of the best technology in the world and then we are going ahead with that for that 120 acres of land is have been identified the land use has been done and we are going ahead with that technical part part has been set now we are working on the design so our target is to start the manufacturing from june 2028 sir while there is a pli support like you have [00:09:32] Speaker 1: already covered major portion like you're already with your journey with your technology and the services you are planning to come up with for the indian market now while there is a pli support for the advanced chemistry cells there is no such incentives for the bs assembly or other downstream components are the policy environment and market signals strong enough to support the demonstration of the bss [00:09:54] Devish Sharma: see bss is a need right now because you know we what we are doing whether we are manufacturing whether we are generating the solar solar power wind power grid power what we are doing we are generating we need once you generate either water and electricity they has to flow or you have to store it we are constructing dams to store the water and then we're passing through the through the channel in order to drive the electricity through the turbines so we are generating electric but once electricity is generated either you need to consume it or you need to store it you are not storing the so yes you are bound to sell it so you are selling at a much cheaper price so if even if you see the tariff these days you are selling the solar energy at less than three rupees but when you store it and when i need the power so it's need based power so base is a is a requirement for that you need to store and power on demand that the concept as per the as per our government so it is very much in fries very much ready to do that and even in the remote location the small grid the mini grids can be constructed with the best coupled with small wind stations coupled with the solar stations which will feed the best systems why the incentivization is not there in the best because best is just assembly you are not doing any technology upgradations or any technology advancement you are totally dependent still on the china because of the cell what you are doing you are importing the cell and then you assemble them you're making cell packs and then you convert into that you know so it's i don't think any any incentivization is required in that it's just like a module manufacturing you are assembling the modules but cell is technology prismatic cell because it's a chemistry you need to invest a lot of things you know you need to invest you need to have brains to double the systems and plus cell to manufacture cell to assemble cell to supply cell and then the cycling of the cell currently people are asking for 6000 cycles but subsequently is moving from 6000 to 8000 8000 12 000 and i can see in the in the near future it it it will go to 16 even to 16 000 if every day you take one switching cycle so even if you are having or maybe two switching cycles you know then you need to have a 12 000 hour switching cycles to give the cell life for at least 20 hours so eli is must because that kind of mega infrastructure high-tech infrastructure people living by four thousand five thousand crore rupees for 10 gigawatt hour it's not easy task so without the government support without the government policy to boost up and the people take the initiative to put their such big amount and you know everything into it without a proper policy in place is very difficult so government has come up with a good policy policy of p of pli same like in semicolon even the they are giving lot of it's not subsidies a grant even they have given the grant even in the designing because semicolon itself is much more advanced than this one so government support vision incentivization policies and support is highly required sir beyond the bss manufacturing [00:13:13] Speaker 1: lines what are your plans around other auxiliary components like bms pcs thermal systems and system integration and also what are your plans for the next five years we need to indigenize everything [00:13:26] Devish Sharma: most of them some either we will get associated with the indian companies bms and ems definitely will be in house and very soon since we are very highly into the artificial intelligence software development so bms and ems setting up is in place parallelly but the rest of the other things initially we are planning to do and we will tie up with the indian companies so our dependence outside india will be zero but recently we have invested in in a in a ev company called kratara they're to 100 made in india bike so we are totally focused as per aligned with the pm vision 100 indigenous product country should not be dependent outside it will stop our revenue to go outside and we are focused in exporting business already pagaria group of companies in the food and and the privilege sector we are already having and the safety we have already having a market in 85 countries whether you name russia you take the entire europe america south america and my experience i've been a widely traveled and worked in many countries brazil panama costa rica dominico republic america every part of europe many countries have set up the plants when i was working in the europe countries southeast asia dubai mina markets african african market so i've worked in many many countries and traveled across the globe multiple times so by knowing the culture you can create a market when you know the culture when you know the necessity when you know the government policies you know so all are in place already with us because being a one of the highest exporter of our food and beverages and safety equipment we understand those market and we have multiple offices around around the country as well and outside the countries to support support our export and thank you so much sir for [00:15:25] Speaker 1: sharing all the important aspects of your journey with the technology and green revolution the pagari group is contributing and you are one of the pioneer in the renewable industry when the industry started so what is your [00:15:38] Devish Sharma: plan for the next five year to contributing for the indian market as well as your personal growth so for the indian market as such we we i think the coming five years we'll be spending on totally on base and prismatic and prismatic cells and we are also going to start in semiconductor so things have been already been placed some people have already joined and partly in the artificial intelligence we will club all our infrastructure projects with the ai to give the better output better control better mechanism and better quality system in place and for my my part of the company grew i will grow personally you know so my growth pagaria growth is my growth thank you so much That was a good idea.