Founded in 2023, H Nu Energy is a rooftop solar developer serving commercial and industrial (C&I) customers across India. The company invests, installs, owns and operates solar plants under the resco or opex model, delivering electricity through long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). Renewable Watch recently interviewed Dr Anuvrat Joshi, Chairman, H Nu Energy, to understand the company’s journey, the current status of the C&I solar segment and the evolving regulatory landscape. Edited excerpts…
Could you begin by giving a brief overview of H Nu Energy and its journey so far?
H Nu Energy was established with the purpose of meeting the green energy needs of top-rated C&I consumers through rooftop solar at no upfront cost. Industries are one of the largest users of power, yet many firms, including leading multinationals, cannot always rely on open access, that is, large offsite solar or wind solutions, because their connected loads and power needs are smaller and do not fit the supply profile. For such customers, rooftop solar is the optimal solution.
In recent years, due to draw of larger scale, many major C&I solar developers have shifted away from rooftop projects towards open access, leaving a supply-side gap in the sector for smaller, high-quality, well-managed installations. We are addressing this need by providing reliable, well-executed and well-run onsite solar plants that are managed with strong corporate governance standards. Our portfolio currently includes over 20 projects across the country, at varying stages of development, execution and full-scale operations. We are present across all major industrial hubs in India, with Chennai, NCR and Pune forming the bases for the region. These hubs provide access to both strong industrial demand as well as the technical expertise and skilled manpower required to deliver and operate high-quality projects. The average size of our projects is 500 kW, and they range from 200 kW to 2 MW. While modest compared to utility-scale projects, these solar installations are critical for customers who would not otherwise have access to cheap and green renewable power.
What are your plans in the space going forward?
Our current focus remains on rooftop solar for top-rated C&I customers. The opportunity is significant, since at least half of India’s top-tier C&I customers will require onsite solutions rather than open access. As mentioned, this is not limited to small and medium enterprises – it includes major corporations and multinationals with connected loads below 5 MW.
What is your view on net metering and virtual net metering for C&I customers?
Net metering remains useful, particularly for industries that do not operate at full capacity during weekends or certain daytime hours. For the residential solar segment, net metering is indispensable. In the C&I segment, it remains important, though not to the same degree as it was ten years ago. C&I projects can tolerate some curtailment since solar tariffs are already significantly lower than grid tariffs.
That said, the size limit for net metering is typically 500 kW in most states, and a bit larger in some. For reasons of grid stability, it may not be realistic to expect this to increase, nor should one look to the state to solve every problem; instead, if these limits hinder an otherwise valuable onsite solar project, commercially viable solutions such as short-duration batteries can be relied on to absorb some excess generation in behind-the-meter installations. Storing excess solar generation for one or two hours during low load periods can make economic sense, given the gap between solar tariff and grid power and the room for peak load shaving. Virtual or group net metering, in contrast, is more relevant for residential or small commercial clusters where pooling of loads across customers is feasible or necessary.
Is H Nu Energy integrating storage or digital energy management solutions alongside solar?
We are keen to integrate storage and digital solutions and are evaluating some potential projects. We are also actively engaging with solution providers, though commercial deployment in the C&I sector in India is still limited. Battery energy storage systems (BESSs) are more advanced at the utility scale, where large offsite solar or wind farms combined with storage can provide a predictable output. Onsite BESSs remain less developed, but the need is clear, especially to manage short-term mismatches between generation and consumption and to deliver a more stable generation profile.
Globally, the residential sector has often been the first adopter of BESS – for example, in the US, where retrenching net metering support has pushed widespread adoption of home storage solutions such as Tesla Powerwall. In India, similar solutions are emerging. Our expectation is that residential adoption will scale first, and C&I will follow with tailored, shorter-duration storage that allows customers to maximise onsite solar without heavy reliance on net metering.
How does open access compare with onsite for C&I customers? In which scenarios would you recommend each route?
Open access is essential for large industrial users with connected loads above 10 MW. However, for many users with lower connected loads, rooftop solar is the practical, optimal and, in many cases, only solution. The market has bifurcated because large developers naturally prefer to deploy capital in large chunks, while rooftop solar has its own league of fewer but loyal followers like us. However, it is critical that both solutions coexist. There is no reason, for example, why a consumer should not be allowed to procure 20 MW from open access while also installing 2 MW within its premises. Prohibiting rooftop projects alongside open access is counterproductive. In fact, in a resource-constrained nation, to throw away large unused sun-baked industrial rooftops that could produce GW of cheap green power would be a missed opportunity.
For a typical small-scale onsite C&I project, what does the cost breakdown look like?
Onsite solar projects usually cost between Rs 30-Rs 40 per watt. Modules account for approximately 40-50 per cent, while installation and balance-of-systems costs can vary a fair bit depending on site-specific conditions, because onsite solutions are often bespoke when compared to an offsite solution.
Rooftop projects, even though we own the asset, are executed at the premises and are essentially a part of the customer’s factory; a totally different level of attention to detail, quality and safety is needed. On the other hand, the absence of the cost and uncertainty related to land and transmission add to the simplicity of rooftop solar.
What is your opinion on the US tariffs and their impact on the C&I solar segment?
The direct impact of US tariffs on India’s C&I solar sector is limited, except for some Indian manufacturers who are now major exporters to the US market. A bigger concern is India’s own domestic policy. India is abruptly curbing imports to encourage local manufacturing. While this provides a boost to domestic producers, it has also introduced technology risk into a sector that previously had virtually none. For decades, top quality modules from established global players demonstrated zero failure risk. By forcing an overnight shift to newer domestic manufacturing, we risk quality variations that could undermine long-term plant performance and investor confidence. A phased transition, perhaps like the one seen in the automotive sector and executed over many years, would have been more welcome than sudden disruptive shifts and artificial barriers, which affect momentum and morale.
Given that you invest, own and operate plants, how do you structure financing for projects?
The solar sector, including onsite solar, is now accepted as an infrastructure asset class. Financing is typically a mix of debt and equity, with lenders, infrastructure funds, private equity and strategic investors participating. Debt is on the whole available for well-structured projects and portfolios, but onsite projects have a smaller scale than open access, making it somewhat harder to access financing.
Interest-rate cycles matter: overall, higher interest rates have added about Rs 0.40-Rs 0.60 per kWh to solar PPA tariffs. Still, financing is not a major barrier, unlike 15 years ago, when renewable energy financing was considered a niche idea.
What are the main regulatory challenges you face in installing projects?
The biggest structural challenge is cross-subsidisation in the power industry that the discoms are compelled to undertake. Industrial customers, who are the cheapest to serve, are charged the most to subsidise residential and agricultural users. This creates resistance from discoms towards C&I solar adoption, since it reduces their only profitable consumer base. Additionally, inconsistent state net-metering rules and still-evolving clarity for behind-the-meter plants create regulatory uncertainty. Again, abrupt policy shifts and contrived barriers introduce technology risk and affect both momentum and morale – phased gradual transition and grandfathering of existing projects remain the primary asks from the industry.
What policy recommendations would you suggest for the C&I solar space?
A more consistent national framework would be extremely helpful for the industry. For example, just as the GST Council, despite conflicting interests, is able to work through many complicated issues, state electricity regulators too could collectively decide on some common thresholds and rules.
We could talk about specific issues, but the true underlying question the nation may want to ask itself is – do we want to enable our industry to have access to the cheapest and greenest form of power they can get in order that they may compete globally, grow, create jobs and generate taxes, or do we wish to limit their access to such power in order that they may continue to cross-subsidise other users through the discoms? Regulations that align with the collective decision will automatically follow.
Reciprocally, the industry too needs to accept that it is time for the sun to set on support from the grid in the form of banking and net-metering; developers and our industrial customers need to price-in and deliver relatively stable power for, say, at least 8-10 hours.
