In the rapidly evolving landscape of renewable energy, recruitment, and retention have emerged as pivotal challenges for organisations. Bhawna Kirpal Mital, CHRO of Hero Future Energies (HFE), sheds light on the complexities of acquiring and retaining talent in the green energy space. She emphasises the need for HR innovation and continuous learning to bridge skill gaps and address gender disparities, highlighting HFE's proactive approach towards tackling these industry-wide challenges.

India has tremendous potential for renewable energy growth. How does your company plan to leverage this potential in talent acquisition and workforce development?

Certainly, we are in interesting times as far as renewable energy growth is concerned. In a high growth period, organisations need to go the extra mile to create their people strategy and embedding it as an integral part of the strategic business planning process. Any company’s most important competitive advantage is the ability to attract and retain people with the right skillset.

At HFE, we go the extra mile right from talent acquisition to people development.  We have established a rigorous hiring process that ensures our commitment to building a team of competent individuals. Our focus is not merely on recruiting candidates for a specific role but on identifying individuals who demonstrate the right attitude, potential, and alignment to our organisation’s mantra and values in addition to being passionate about protecting the planet. Just to share we have seen significant demand for roles in the green energy sector amongst youngsters during campus recruitment drives. We are in an era where change is happening at a much faster pace, thanks to technology and its ability to disrupt work through new applications of automation and the growing integration of AI. Innovation is accelerating and we encourage our team to innovate and showcase their innovations.  

We understand that in the fast-paced world of renewable energy, staying ahead means constantly updating skills and knowledge. Therefore, we emphasise not just on one-time training but ongoing refresher courses to keep employees abreast with updated technologies. These programs ensure that all members of the HFE family, regardless of their tenure or role, remain at the top of things in their domain. We have invested heavily in a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) to develop the capabilities of the team. This commitment to continuous learning fosters a culture of excellence and innovation at HFE. Identifying high potential and carving their career path has been working very well towards people development. Empowering people to make decisions both on the business and financial side has resulted in confident and responsible teams that take accountability and ownership.

Our priority is to groom our teams holistically so that they can work happily. Our trust in our teams has led us to go into complete flex mode – work from anywhere and work anytime resulting in work-life harmony. We continuously focus on health and mental wellness for teams and their families. As a CHRO, I firmly believe in the saying ‘Sound body is the product of a sound mind’ and wellness encompasses a healthy body, a sound mind, and a peaceful spirit. Apart from this, we run a wide variety of employee engagement activities which bring smiles to our people’s faces and boost their morale.  

What role does your organisation see itself playing in India's renewable energy landscape, considering the government's ambitious renewable energy targets?

The government of India has set an ambitious target to achieve 500 GW through non-fossil fuel sources / renewable energy before 2030. With the rapid transformation of the renewable energy landscape from vanilla utility-scale solar projects to round-the-clock power supply and the growing C&I market, even the established developers are forced to stay nimble in adapting to the ever-changing scenario.

As part of the Hero Group, HFE was established in 2012, with the idea of profit for a purpose, to contribute towards preserving our environment for future generations. Today HFE has 3 GW of wind, grid-connected solar, and rooftop solar power generating assets both operating and under construction in India and Europe and another 2 GW of projects in the pipeline across India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and the UK. Emerging technologies such as energy storage and green hydrogen will take up a significant share of our portfolio in the future.

The recent addition of KKR as a strategic partner alongside existing marquee investors like the International Finance Corporation (IFC), coupled with the company's strong pipeline under development in multiple countries, sets the stage for an ambitious growth trajectory. HFE aims to expand five times over the next five years.

HFE's growth strategy involves offering end-to-end energy solutions in the C&I space, becoming an integrated energy solutions partner for its customers, and providing advanced round-the-clock and firm power solutions with integrated battery-enabled storage solutions. Additionally, the company is looking to establish itself as the go-to partner for green hydrogen energy and mobility solutions. On the India Utility front, we are increasingly looking at more advanced Hybrid, RTC, and Peak power projects.

Transformation of the C&I sector will continue to remain the cornerstone of the country’s decarbonisation efforts and we are working with some of the largest C&I players in India and other countries, helping them navigate their journey to Net Zero. In our role as an energy transition partner, we are supporting our clients to create Roadmaps to convert Net-Zero pledges to Net-Zero roadmaps and provide Products, Solutions and Services to enable their Net-Zero journey.

Takeaways:

• Recruitment and Retention are the key challenges for all organisations in the Green energy space.
• The ability to attract and retain people with the right skill set is the most important competitive advantage of any company
• Challenges push HR to be innovative

Are there any specific initiatives your company has undertaken to address the unique challenges and opportunities present in the Indian renewable energy market?

The sector has seen significant growth in the last couple of years, especially in the RE space but there is a long way to go towards the 500 GW RE goal. The sector needs to address some long-standing structural issues to ensure RE growth is in line with those targets.

To address the problem of intermittent power that comes with renewable energy, HFE is setting its sights on becoming a key player in the energy storage market, recognising the critical role storage plays in addressing the grid stability issues due to increased renewable energy penetration in the grid.

Implementation of 40% BCD on Modules and 25% on Cells is expected to temper RE growth in the short term. This, along with ALMM and Global Supply chain disruptions caused significant module price increases in the recent past, although these have normalised since. While there has been some relief owing to the deferment of ALMM, more sustainable avenues to closing this supply gap must be implemented. To overcome this challenge, HFE has recently signed a tolling agreement with PIXON Green Energy for high-efficiency modules for up to 500 MW annually on a prioritised basis. This agreement will also help us to control our costs better and have more visibility in our supply chain

Variations in state-wise policies and regulations have led to confusion among prospective investors and the lack of long-term policy visibility in some states has somewhat depressed the investment environment in power generation projects in states.

Looking at these challenges, HFE is looking at expanding its business to better service large C&I clients across their entire spectrum of energy service requirements and targeting more secure Solar En­­­­ergy Corporation of India (SECI) and ot­h­er central government-backed projects.

India is witnessing a huge potential in terms of Green Hydrogen. The Union Budget for 2024-25 has allocated Rs 600 crore for the National Green Hydrogen Mission, marking a substantial increase of 102% compared to the previous year's budget of Rs 297 crore. This should provide impetus to the development of the green hydrogen ecosystem in the country.

What are the primary challenges or bottlenecks your organisation faces in achieving its renewable energy goals, particularly from a human resources perspective?

Recruitment and Retention are the key challenges for all organisations in the Green energy space. Bringing colleagues that possess the knowledge, skills, and competence required for the renewable sector and retaining them in the highly dynamic business environment where entry of new companies in India is like a norm. I must say that we are in good times as such challenges push HR to be innovative, to design interventions that will go a long way in making an impact, and to experiment with different approaches to talent acquisition. The best part is that HR must always be on their toes to challenge their ways. It is time for HR to retrain themselves on how to bridge the gap of manpower supply and how to ensure the availability of required skill sets through training. Another challenge is that the Renewable energy sector is female-deficient with very few females in senior roles and hard-core technical roles. We have been taking that extra mile approach to tackle these challenges.

How do you identify and address skill gaps and talent shortages within the renewable energy industry in India and globally?

Let me start with the statement by the International Energy Agency (IEA) – Despite the brisk growth of the clean energy jobs, IEA expects a considerable shortage in skilled labor to stand against further expansion. The number of individuals getting certificates to work in the energy sector is not keeping up with demand. India's renewable energy sector could potentially employ around one million people by 2030. The fact is that supply is falling short of demand.

The fast pace at which the renewable energy sector is changing course has led to the demand for newer skills to match the technological breakthroughs and the need for focused training programs to bridge the skill gap, and its identification is directly linked to the business environment and the company’s strategy. Annual Operating plan, strategy, and mapping of existing manpower is the starting point for skill gap discussion. Let me share that in this space in India, the business scenario has been very dynamic over the last few years.  We intend to groom campus recruits with clean energy skill-set requirements and thus, our focus is heavily on campus engagement. Yes, I will acknowledge that still there are not many academic courses/ training programs focusing on clean sector requirements. Hence, the onus falls on companies to design training interventions, design thinking labs, promote mentorship, and regular training sessions for the teams. Close partnerships with academia to deliver talks and collaborate for research are key for the sector. Renewable energy experts all over the world should collaborate to exchange views and provide mentorship to renewable energy enthusiasts. Participation in ongoing projects and brainstorming sessions to ignite the minds for innovation in clean space. Bringing people from related sectors and training them on clean sector skill sets can add to competent people in the sector. Promoting STEM at the school level to ensure that we tap young minds and motivate them to be ready in some years for clean sector roles.

Continuous learning is the only way to train and retrain the workforce to be ready for changing business scenarios. Our employees are encouraged to continue their education to upgrade their skills. We reimburse part of their course fee.

Can you share any innovative approaches your company has adopted to overcome obstacles and ensure sustainable growth in the renewable energy sector?

HFE has always been a pioneer in large-scale deployment of many such technologies. Today, trackers are installed on nearly a quarter of our solar assets. We are working with several companies in AI/ML to deploy predictive maintenance solutions to maximise asset uptime and availability and optimise day-to-day performance to enhance CUF across our Wind, Solar, and Hybrid portfolio. We plan to keep up this trend by investing our resources in developing new technologies like BESS and Green Hydrogen. We’ve already won India’s first commercial battery storage project in Kerala and aim to conclude a Green Hydrogen Pilot by mid-2024.

We are working with some of India’s Leading Players in Hard to Abate Sectors on Innovative/scalable use Cases for Green Hydrogen deployment, solving real-world challenges and aim to work with them to build and scale pilot projects which will form the basis of accelerating their Net Zero journeys and making a tangible difference.