This 26-year-old Stanford graduate is going to help PM Modi in realising India’s solar energy dreams

When Varun Sivaram, a 26-year-old Stanford graduate, comes to India this month, he will bring along a story with which India will inch towards realising its solar energy dreams.

Meet Sivaram, who is one of those who want to help India achieve its target of generating 100 gigawatts of solar energy by 2022.

Sivaram, a Rhodes and Truman scholar, who is an advisor to the head of New York State's entire energy portfolio, is coming to India this month to meet Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister J Jayalalitha, members of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh to exchange plans to achieve the target.

When asked why he was interested in the Indian chapter, Sivaram said, “Solar was in my DNA. My dad was in the industry and I always wanted to go there.”

Sivaram is a strategic advisor to Richard Kauffman, chairman of energy and finance for New York who works for the office of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

"Varun is the right person at the right time. The utility sector needs more innovation and fundamental change in how it approaches customers. Varun's insights on how markets inform innovation have been instrumental to developing policy in New York," Kauffman told ET.

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Sivaram, who graduated in 2011, saw the flood of Chinese solar panels in the US, which turned the industry in the country.

Sivaram is also the youngest Douglas Dillon Fellow at Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), a think-tank in New York that specialises in US foreign policy and international affairs.

"Ministers do not want advice from western analysts. What they find helpful is when we share our experiences of implementing solutions on the ground," said Sivaram.

In India, renewable energy is not cheap even after having cheap labour and land acquisition. The main problem resides in high upfront capital costs.

Sivaram will try to lobby for access to affordable foreign debt and help the government devise a debt-related policy.

Experts in the solar energy sector say India can achieve a lot in this sector and what is required is more support from banks and more transmission networks.

Looking at his past record, Sivaram knows how to convince and work with policy makers. In 2013, he helped implement a policy in Los Angeles after which residents installed solar panels on their roof tops. This is now the biggest solar feed-in tariff program in the US.

(Image: Indiatimes)