Enhancing Solar Efficiency Through Advances in Balance of System Components

Dilip Kumar started his career as an automation engineer, due to his keen interest in developing new products. He joined Rockwell Automation Inc., global leader in industrial automation, as Application Engineer. At Rockwell Automation, he was assigned growing responsibilities, leading to manage customers contributing 12% of its revenue in India. During his tenure, he received multiple awards for his technical & sales leadership. Between 2012 and 2016, he spearheaded SMA India's South Region. Consistently achieved exceptional and measurable results in identifying new markets, setting up new business territories, and building and leading teams in a dynamic environment. In the year 2015, he, along with Mr. Vikram Shetty founded Inspire Clean Energy (ICE) - a pure play, technical asset, operations, and maintenance management company for solar PV plants. In the last 9+ years, ICE has grown and is regarded as a technical expert in managing solar PV assets. Many of its processes are now de facto standard operating procedures in the industry. In late 2018, he co-founded Reparar Works (RW), India's first Solar PV repairs, refurbishment, and recycling company, focusing on sustainable ways to handle the post warranty life of PV components. Today, ICE and RW together as Life Cycle Management companies, have made a positive impact on close to 3 GWp of solar PV assets. Regarded as the go-to person in the solar PV tech community, he was awarded "Dr. Solar" in 2022, "PV Guru" and "Solar Specialist of the Decade" in 2023. With a strong sense of socio-environmental responsibilities culminating in formation of 'The ReLIFE Programme,' which helped provide livelihoods to people displaced by COVID. The program helped close to 200 people restart their lives who were the sole breadwinners for their families.

This session will explore advancements in electrolytic and non-electrolytic green hydrogen production technologies, comparing their efficiency, scalability, and costs for various applications.

Cummins' 'Destination Zero' strategy for zero carbon emissions. He also spearheads the electrolyzer strategy and supports the new power strategy, including batteries and energy storage solutions. In addition, he is responsible for developing talent for Cummins' global organization. Prior to joining Cummins, Subramanian led strategy and digitalization for the Distribution Business of Siemens Ltd. for nearly five years, and took care of global strategic projects, cost reduction programs, portfolio digitalization, process excellence, and more. Before that, he worked at McKinsey and Siemens Management Consulting for over six years, where he spearheaded transformation programs and developed business and corporate strategies for players across sectors (Logistics, Cement, Oil and Gas Conglomerates, Engineering) and across functions, primarily in Strategy, Operations and Sales & Marketing. He was also part of the team that developed the McKinsey report on 'India: From Poverty to Empowerment'. During an earlier stint at Siemens Ltd., Subramanian was instrumental in implementing the 'Order Tracking System' tool for sales order management for one of their factories in Mumbai. He was also part of 'Lean Manufacturing' transformation project - first-of-its-kind in Siemens factories outside of Germany. Subramanian holds a post graduate diploma in Management from IIM Lucknow (Operations and Strategy specialization) and a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from VJTI, Mumbai. He has several national and international papers to his credit, along with articles on Operations and Strategy. Beyond work, Subramanian is pursuing study of Sanskrit language and Carnatic music. He completed MA in Sanskrit (specialized in Vedanta) in 2017 and is pursuing PhD from Chinmaya Vishwa Vidyapeeth on 'Indic insights for modern leadership'. He is also the visiting faculty of Vedanta and Puranas at the University of Mumbai. He is married to Kripa who has a PhD in Chemistry from ICT, Mumbai, and they have a son named Shankar

Sagar Mitra is a distinguished Professor in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. Prior to joining IIT Bombay in 2009, he served as the Principal Electrochemist at Replisaurus Technologies in Stockholm, Sweden from 2006 to 2009. At present, Professor Mitra not only serves as a faculty member at IIT Bombay but also leads his own IITB start-up company, Voltrez Technologies. The company is dedicated to the manufacturing of patented dendrite-free technology for safe liquid electrolyte-based lithium-ion batteries, addressing critical safety concerns associated with battery technology. Beyond his academic and entrepreneurial endeavours, Professor Mitra holds significant roles in various national committees and advisory boards. He actively contributes to NitiAayog as part of the lithium circular economy subcommittee, assisting in the formulation of policies for lithium recycling. Additionally, he collaborates with the Government of India's PSA (Principal Scientific Adviser) office on the Battery Storage Roadmap for India. Recognized for his expertise, Professor Mitra served on the technical advisory boards of esteemed institutions such as the Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) in Karaikudi, ARCI-Hyderabad, and RCI-DRDO Lab in Hyderabad. Furthermore, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Epsilon Carbon and Advanced Materials Industry in India and is a Technical Advisory Committee member for Thermax in Pune. Professor Mitra's current research interests revolve around the development of advanced materials and technologies for various energy storage applications, with a particular focus on lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and metal sulfur batteries. His contributions to the field are underscored by his impressive publication record, boasting more than 130 peer-reviewed articles, as well as the filing of 30 patents in the area of different metal-ion batteries. Professor Mitra's research group is deeply engaged in exploring the performance, understanding, and cell prototyping of lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and metal sulfur batteries.

Dr. Puzant Baliozian is the VDMA PV Equipment Group's project manager since September of this year. He is involved in techno-economic studies for manufacturing capacity of PV along the value chain and represents the interests of European PV equipment manufacturers internationally. The PV Sector Group at VDMA also publishes the yearly international technology roadmap for photovoltaics (ITRPV) showing highly relevant technology projections and trends. Dr. Baliozian studied physics at the American University of Beirut (BSc., 2014) and has a specialization in renewable energy (MSc. 2016) from the university of Freiburg. From 2016 until recently, he worked at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg in the field of photovoltaic production technologies where he also did his PhD. He is best known for developing the passivated edge technology for separated industrial solar cell concepts, to boost cell and module efficiencies.