Mahua Acharya: Green Evangelist

The Yale graduate who delivered affordable clean energy across the world is now leading India's green transportation drive

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 Mahua Acharya, 44, MD & CEO, Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL) -- Photograph by Rajwant Rawat Mahua Acharya, 44, MD & CEO, Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL) -- Photograph by Rajwant Rawat
Prerna Lidhoo
  • Dec 10, 2021,
  • Updated Dec 11, 2021 2:46 PM IST

India's green energy drive has a globally experienced evangelist. And her motivation is special. "Having a child has been a big turning point in my career. It makes climate change and environmental stress personal. Left unaddressed, my child will grow up in Delhi's bad air," says Mahua Acharya, MD and CEO, Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), which is a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power. Drafted in by EESL to run the brand new CESL in November 2020, Acharya's mandate is to use her two-decade-long experience in green finance, renewables and carbon markets to help India achieve its 100 GW solar power target by 2022.

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And she has taken to the job with unmasked vigour. She's not only building the organisation from scratch, but also leading the company's mission to unleash a revolution for electric transportation across states, and execute a mandate for India's transition across energy verticals. Acharya is currently working on India's first digital marketplace for electric vehicles (EVs). Her initiative, MyEV, has not only enabled smooth access to consumers in Kerala for booking and buying electric two-wheelers, but also made them available at competitive prices from the comfort of their homes.

Her goal is to create a new space to develop a pricing strategy for EVs in the country. "Right now I'm only focussing on a few major topics like electric mobility, decentralised renewables and carbon markets," she says. With Acharya in charge, green India has a chance.

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@PLidhoo

India's green energy drive has a globally experienced evangelist. And her motivation is special. "Having a child has been a big turning point in my career. It makes climate change and environmental stress personal. Left unaddressed, my child will grow up in Delhi's bad air," says Mahua Acharya, MD and CEO, Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), which is a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power. Drafted in by EESL to run the brand new CESL in November 2020, Acharya's mandate is to use her two-decade-long experience in green finance, renewables and carbon markets to help India achieve its 100 GW solar power target by 2022.

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And she has taken to the job with unmasked vigour. She's not only building the organisation from scratch, but also leading the company's mission to unleash a revolution for electric transportation across states, and execute a mandate for India's transition across energy verticals. Acharya is currently working on India's first digital marketplace for electric vehicles (EVs). Her initiative, MyEV, has not only enabled smooth access to consumers in Kerala for booking and buying electric two-wheelers, but also made them available at competitive prices from the comfort of their homes.

Her goal is to create a new space to develop a pricing strategy for EVs in the country. "Right now I'm only focussing on a few major topics like electric mobility, decentralised renewables and carbon markets," she says. With Acharya in charge, green India has a chance.

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@PLidhoo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prerna Lidhoo

Prerna writes on auto, business of entertainment, telecom and a lot of things in between. Having worked as a reporter for over six years, she takes pride in using creative writing, photography and other multimedia tools to tell a story as effectively as possible. She has worked with Hindustan Times, Scroll.in and Fortune India, and her freelance work can be found at The Wire, Huffington Post, DAWN and others. She spends her free time reading about human psychology and watching re-runs of Seinfeld.

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