IEW Q&A: Anuja Tiwari, Senior Partner at AZB & Partners

There are lots of hurdles when it comes to ensuring a stable and green supply of energy.

India has its own unique challenges.

⁠Anuja Tiwari is a Senior Partner at Indian corporate law firm AZB & Partners in its Delhi office.

With specialisms in energy, infrastructure and sustainability, Anuja leverages her 16 years of experience to advise across all aspects of project development and operation — whether advising clients on entry-level strategies, pre-dispute resolution strategies or assisting clients to adapt to regulatory and policy changes. 

Her key areas of advisory are:

• Carbon off-sets and new energies
• renewable and conventional energy
• Oil & gas
• ESG
• Natural resources
• Transport and e-mobility
• Telecom
• Defence
• Aviation
• Manufacturing

Anuja caught up with Energy Digital at India Energy Week earlier in the year to share her expertise on some energy challenges faced in India and how they can best be overcome.

Q. In your opinion, what are the most significant regulatory hurdles you see for the development of virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) and C&I platforms in India?

Captive and Industrial (C&I) is a big market in India and involves alternate arrangements outside the regulatory sale of electricity.

We’re talking about all high tension users here. So this is basically on account of the fact that distribution companies are not as reliable in terms of supplying power. 

This is not cheap power because there is some concept of cross subsidy in India. To subsidise the retail consumers, they give higher tariffs to industrial consumers. Essentially, what they end up doing is setting up their own plants.

Plus, they have green targets — and we don't have a dedicated green corridor. This means you can't determine if the electricity that's coming to you is actually from a green source or not. 

These however are motivators. C&I platforms are good for ESG, sustainability-linked targets, regular part consumption that you want 24/7 and it's good because you can control the plant and that really helps you internationally fulfil many of your obligations.

Frankly, India is always indirectly or directly in the picture because we are such a large consumer market. All the H&Ms, the IKEAs and the Amazons of the world will land up here and the push is actually coming from their home countries. 

Because of that, frankly, the development of C&I happens here. 

Q. AZB & Partners advises clients across the entire lifecycle of projects, from financing to dispute resolution. What are some proactive strategies companies can implement to minimize disputes in large-scale renewable energy projects, considering the current challenges of supply chains and fluctuating power prices?

Large-scale renewable energy will always be full of challenges. 

The reason for that is electricity as a subject, as per a constitution, can be legislated upon by the central government and the state. 

Because of that, you've got multiple players. Large scale means there's going to be an inter-state sale of power.

You're going to be looking at platforms where the projects are spread across different states — and different states are legislating differently. 

This means every project itself becomes a problem-solving issue for companies. And then you are looking at getting investors in at a platform level.

Streamlining all this is hard. Even arbitrations are not going to be that effective because they're just becoming another form of litigation. It is an issue. 

Plus, it's a heavily regulated sector. This brings about problems because you have legislation and directions coming out basically every week.

We are living in extreme energy poverty in the world because we have the lowest performance per capita for consumption equity. To eradicate that, you can't have a better market than here.

India is being pushed, particularly when it comes to renewable energy as well as creating hydrogen and green ammonia. We’re not just a nation of consumption. 

EVs are picking up in India. Now if this is going to be the case, then you are going to have more renewable energy — but they can still not become the mainstay of the grid because it has to be transported and there's not enough infrastructure to support it. This is where you need battery storage and localised consumption of electricity. 

VPPAs are a very good tool and the Ministry of Power is going to come up with some guidelines to support that.

There is no silver bullet, but you can use VPPAs structure to your advantage.

Q. How can domestic manufacturing for the renewables sector be boosted in areas like India, rather than relying on exports? 

If you look at India today — particularly the states which have access to ports— you are seeing manufacturing facilities for solar panels.

This gives access to the domestic market without creating an issue around the levies. This also allows India to cater to the needs of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and other markets in the south.

India is becoming a gateway. 

What is interesting is that this is not the way the wind industry is shaped. 

If you look at companies like Adani, they're actually upping manufacturing because they want their entire ecosystem to be within their control so that tender costs become cheaper.

This plays into security as well as those other elements. Tata is going to supply maximum modules to its own projects with whatever capacity is left being offered to the rest of the world. So it's a very smart move because then you're beating issues and regulatory hurdles around China, Chinese investments and Chinese goods.

Q. Are there any other trends/curves in energy that you anticipate/would like to give a platform to?

District cooling — we have to talk about newer ideas.

We’re talking in February and it’s already 30°C, but by the time it's summer, it's going to be 50°C plus. Industrial air conditioning cannot take it.

We have to move to community models for certain solutions and move to decentralised models for other things. For electricity generation, maybe digitalised models are better, but for cooling, centralised models are better. We have the technology, but ee need to apply ourselves.

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