Makar's Climatenza Solar provides low-cost, efficient solar thermal energy to industries with the aim to increase adoption
Akshay Makar | 29
Founder, Climatenza Solar
The world has seen an unprecedented growth of renewables in the past decade. However, this growth is limited to power generation, says Akshay Makar, founder of Climatenza Solar. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 75 percent of the energy in industries comes from the burning of fossil fuels.
Climatenza will be investing $8.4 million for the development of India’s first state-of-the-art solar thermal production line for mass manufacturing. It plans to work with major industrial houses that are looking to scale renewable generation. With 273 MW, Climatenza will be able to offset 2.87 million tonnes of carbon emission, and earn revenue of over $38 million. Currently, 80 percent of its projects are in India, and the rest in Bangladesh.
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Within India, it is focusing on textiles, food processing and beverages, dairy, chemical and pharma. “Collectively, these industries use around 1.15 billion tonnes of fossil fuels. With an average cost of about $35 per tonne, the total addressable market is about $40.25 billion,” says Makar.
According to him, three things set his company apart: Space utilisation, technical efficiency and lower costs. “Our closest competition needs 100 sq m for installation while we need 5.5 sq m. We can be 35 to 40 percent cheaper compared to our competition due to the value chains being developed in India,” he adds.
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The firm recently signed a deal with Coca-Cola for deploying its technology at four of its plants in India, starting with Andhra Pradesh. It is also working with Rallis India, Tata Chemicals, Unilever, NCL and others.
“Climatenza Solar came in as our sustainability partner to reduce carbon footprint and provide energy security. We are working with it for demonstrating a 704 sq m pilot scale concentrated solar thermal plant and scaling this technology to achieve our carbon abatement targets,” says S Nagarajan, chief operating officer of Rallis India.