Entering a new domain to explore opportunities, Hygge Energy has teamed up with Indian Oil Corporation to run a pilot program to explore the potential use of solar-powered EV fast charging stations.
Prateek Saxena, CEO, Hygge Energy highlighted, “Hygge Energy has carved out a space for itself as a young and innovative technology company. We are utilising revolutionary technology to create a renewable energy and carbon trading marketplace that will help nations around the world meet their net-zero targets as per COP26 while encouraging a culture of sharing and giving back to the community.”
Pratik Saxena, CEO, Hygge Energy: “In fact, when we were scaling, we saw a $5-6 billion (Rs 41,235 crore to Rs 49,482 crore) carbon trading opportunity for Indian Oil.”
Saxena said the Indian Oil project gave insight into several challenges faced by the Indian EV charging business. Firstly, the electrical grid is not resilient enough to allow EV charging. When EV chargers are set up, the grid infrastructure requires costly and time-consuming upgrades. This results in increased transformer size causing higher sanctioned load and electricity bills as well.
The Hygge Energy solution cabinet stores solar energy and also helps balance the grid load for the operator.
“Our solution addresses all of these problems. It was designed with three essential objectives in mind: EVs are charged using solar or other renewable energy, hence promoting zero-emissions mobility; no upgrades are required in the grid infrastructure, hence avoiding delays and expenses and lowering dependence on grid load drastically reducing the payback period of rooftop solar installations. Our solution proved that a rooftop solar-powered fuel station can not only reduce its electricity bill by 80 percent but also provide 8 hours of EV charging without using any electricity from the grid,” he added.
According to Saxena, their solution turned out to be a tremendous opportunity for carbon trading, “for companies like Indian Oil to generate carbon credits. When we were scaling, we saw a $5-6 billion (Rs 41,235 crore to Rs 49,482 crore) carbon trading opportunity for Indian Oil.”
As part of its expansion plans, Hygge Energy is going supplier agnostic by working with all leading Tier 1 EV charger manufacturers. The company’s software gets integrated with the EV chargers.
“We have also developed the Hygge Box, a plug-and-play device embedded with our patented technology. The Hygge Box connects renewable energy sources to these EV chargers. This instantly results in the creation of a smart EV charging station, not only enabling franchises and aggregators to take advantage of carbon credits but also helping drive traffic to the station with the help of a feature that is unique to the Hygge Platform: the facility to reserve EV chargers in advance. We are scouting for partners to manufacture the Hygge Box in India and are actively in discussions with large Japanese companies,” shares Saxena.