France’s ENGIE eyes energy trading, corporate power pacts, green ammonia deals in India

New Delhi: French low-carbon energy and services company ENGIE is looking at corporate power purchase agreements, bilateral pacts and power trading in India through its supply & energy management operations.

ENGIE launched its Supply & Energy Management operations in India on Wednesday. It helps companies optimize energy supply and consumption to cut costs and meet sustainability goals.

“In India, a significant decarbonization plan is underway for a lot of companies consuming power,” Edouard Neviaski, ENGIE’s executive vice president for the global business unit supply & energy management, said in an interview. “For many power consuming companies, it’s very crucial to design the right corporate PPAs (power purchase agreements) that enables to buy green electron, which serves their needs or consumption in the years to come.”

Neviaski said in line with its global position, ENGIE would aim to be among the top three companies in terms of signing corporate PPAs in India. Its supply & energy management unit would also eye opportunities to source green ammonia from India for European buyers, he said.

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“We’re going to develop the market like we develop in other countries, leveraging our market expertise,” he said.

With varying demand requirements and the power demand itself varying at different times of the day and different periods of the year, the PPAs need to be customized and more flexible. Neviaski said the energy mix on offer should be more diverse and include all sources of green power, like solar, wind and battery storage.

Opportunity in India

The Indian market has immense opportunities in the corporate PPA and power trade space as it still growing, with more and more green energy coming online, he said.

“Last year, we signed 4.3 GW (gigawatts) corporate PPAs globally. Studies indicate by 2030 there will be as much as 100 GW of corporate PPAs (in India). We want to be part of it and play a key role in this expansion. We are always in the top three of the corporate PPA on a worldwide basis, so we want to be in the top three in India,” he said.

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Neviaski said that ENGIE will also look at providing new products in the power trading market. Although the company is now mostly focused on the short-term and spot markets, as the market matures, it would look at offering longer-term supply of three or six months.

The company received a power trading licence last December to operate in India.

“We are an active participant in the exchanges but also in bilateral trading space. What we know as ENGIE, is to bring liquidity to the market, and of course, this is one thing which is important for the market to develop,” Neviaski said.

“You need to set the right price signals, and to do so, you need the market. You need to develop liquidity. And, of course, you need large companies like ENGIE to be a market participant, and that’s what we’ve been developing in Europe, in the US, in Japan, in Australia, and so we have done that in other [countries],” he added.

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He said that ENGIE’s supply & energy management activity is operational in 19 countries with Singapore, Australia, Japan, and the US among the key markets. It is present across most of the European countries, he said.

ENGIE, present in the Indian renewable energy space since 2014, has 2.3 GW of renewable energy projects, largely with solar power sources. The company is now looking at setting up more complex round-the-clock green energy projects and the ENGIE executive noted that the supply & energy management unit would play a key role in monetizing surplus power by supplying it to non-contracted buyers.