French multinational Schneider Electric sees India as its upcoming central manufacturing location

According to a senior corporate official, French multinational Schneider Electric is placing a significant bet on India’s economic development to make it the main focus of its operations for creating revolutionary technologies for the world.

Schneider Electric, a company that specializes in energy management and automation, executive vice president of worldwide operations Manish Pant said: They established one of the four centres in India to develop and introduce solutions to the country, which is already their third-largest market globally, as well as to determine how they might support their expansion plans here.

Schneider Electric sees India as a major manufacturing location

According to Pant, the nation has a large pool of youthful talent with excellent digital skills. He said it was essential to further tap into this skill pool, crediting the country with starting the digital transformation by introducing BPOs in the 2000s.

When they enter episode two of digitalization, which is the transition from the private internet to the net of machines, he said they must consider how to get Schneider ready to be in front of the curve.

Schneider Electric now has 34,500 employees worldwide, most of whom work in its 30 manufacturing facilities in India.

They stated that they are making a substantial investment here. They are constructing five new factories to prepare the infrastructure for India and the global community.

He specifically regarded energy transition as delivering an alluring growth proposition as the nation considerably increased its electricity usage per capita to 10,000 kWh by 2047 from the current 1,200 kWh.

“Electricity will become the largest portion of the energy mix to support economic growth. From 20 per cent today it is going to increase to 50 per cent. This transition is bound to happen because the biggest source of carbon emissions is energy itself,” he explained.

He referred to electricity as the best decarbonization tool. He noted that given India’s extensive coastline and tropical climate, the growing use of renewable energy sources like wind & solar on the supply side and digitalization would help accelerate this transformation.

According to Pant, decentralized generation from renewable sources might bring electricity to the most rural areas of India, and Schneider Electric could assist in regulating production, storage, and baseload volatility. It has the technological capabilities to make the system “smart and robust to handle all of these numerous sources at various times as well as to optimize demands” for both large-scale utilities and microgrids.

Green hydrogen was another important industry for the business, and it was already collaborating with HPCL on a project to manufacture the product.

Concerning the significance of skilled labour in ensuring millions of Indians have access to energy, he said the corporation had, up to this point, taught more than 1.8 lakh individuals at its 400 training sites throughout the nation.