The demand for energy is growing day by day in the whole world. The Conventional energy sources like coal and petroleum are limited and Renewable energy resources will be seen playing an important role in the future. Aura Energy is one such manufacturer of Solar Products with a simple mission to champion the transition from fossil fuel to inexpensive, clean, sustainable solar energy, and empower homes and communities.
Incorporated in December 2013 in New Delhi, Aura expands its offerings to include Solar EPC services specializing in the rooftop segment. By 2016, Aura became an MNRE Channel Partner offering both EPC services and added PMC for megawatt scale solar power plants. Today, Aura is a premier manufacturer of solar products with operations in 7 states across India. Aura is now exporting its motion sensor based Solar Street lights to the United States and plans to expand its market moving forward.
Catering Products to a Wide Array of Applications
Aura is constantly innovating and customizing its products to stay at the vanguard of technology. Aura’s product range features the latest Lithium battery technology to ensure lightweight, compact designs. Furthermore, each product has a modular design so as to ensure higher compatibility with existing infrastructure and greater ease of installation. The products are designed to ensure longevity and durability. For example, their Solar Street Lights feature motion sensors that enable them to turn on and off depending on whether there is a need, thereby increasing the product life.
Aura is currently working on designing SMART Solar Street Lighting systems that incorporates all components of a normal Solar Street Light such as Solar Panels, Batteries, LEDs, etc. in one compact product along with additional features like remote connectivity, energy conservation, app control, etc. On the Industrial side, the company is working on custom designed packages for applications in telecommunication and railways.
An Accomplished Leader
Abhinav Sharan is the Founder & CEO of Aura Renewable Energy. He has completed his Undergraduate Major in EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) from University of California, Berkeley and Masters in MS&E from Columbia University, New York.
Being a skillful and accomplished leader, Abhinav works on ensuring that there is constant in house innovation and evolution to own the Intellectual Property that drives Aura’s products. This allows Aura to offer custom built products and solutions to its customers. His focus remains on creating robust processes that lowers chances of human error. “To be competitive in the global marketplaces, there is an added emphasis on maximizing in house content enabling better cost control and greater throughput,” asserts Abhinav.
Aura’s Say on Current Industry Scenario
According to Aura, the Industry is currently undergoing a period of transformation from a controlled, subsidy driven market to a free one. Due to this, there is a good amount of consolidation that is taking place. The main focus for the past few years has been on large scale solar power plants, however, they believe that this will have to change if people are serious about using alternative sources of energy for their everyday needs.
“The Government of India has targeted total installation of around 100,000 MW by March 2022 out of which 40,000 MW must come from Rooftops out of which we have only achieved around 900 MW so far. Furthermore, most of the discourse is around these large scale solar power plants that are still subject to our crumbling Transmission & Distribution infrastructure. Although rates have fallen drastically over the last few years, the end consumer doesn’t benefit due to the added costs of Transmission & Distribution. To achieve our targets, we must focus on decentralized solar/alternative energy applications such as Solar Rooftops and Solar Street Lights, where projects can go from concept to completion quickly without dependencies on supporting infrastructure. The push towards Smart Cities across India will also offer new and exciting opportunities for the Renewable Energy space.”
Defeating the Obstacles
Back when Aura was first established, they faced an uphill task in talent acquisition. Being a relatively new industry, there wasn’t enough qualified talent available that had the necessary skill sets. Additionally, access to Banking and Capital always remained a challenge, where high interest rates and low market liquidity lead to stretched working capital needs. Overall, there has been a general lack of appreciation for quality products and performance. Most of the conversation is used to be driven by subsidy and pricing but Aura is now able to see this changing as the market matures and understands the importance of product performance.
The Successful Strategy
For Aura, there are two matrices that were challenging. One was balancing the product vs project offerings and added to this was segmenting the solar market across India. The strategy in overcoming these challenges that paid off best was Aura’s focus on building a world-class product. This enabled the company to tap the domestic and the export markets.
Aura has done this by innovating decentralized smart products such as Integrated Solar Street Lighting Systems, Solar Hybrid Inverters and Solar Home Lighting Systems that use the latest Lithium Ion/Lithium Ferro Phosphate batteries for ease of use and low maintenance. The emphasis on decentralized power has ensured that their projects and products can be installed without any dependence on supporting infrastructure leading to quick turnaround times and maximizing cost benefits to the end user.
The Future Focus of Aura
Aura is now looking forward outside the global markets and is focusing on exports. On the domestic front, Aura is working on multiple projects with MES (Military Engineering Services) that incorporate the Integrated Solar Street Light and All in One Solar Street Light products. The company is also innovating and adapting its solar offerings for industrial applications in the Telecom, Railways and Process Industries.
Source :-The 10 Most Admired Renewable Energy Solution Provider
Aura Energy: An Integrated Platform Leveraging Expertise to Serve Clients Globally
