Vishal Kapoor

Vishal Kapoor

EESL

Chief Executive Officer, Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL)


Mr. Vishal Kapoor has joined as the Chief Executive Officer of Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL). He is an accomplished professional with over 24 years of experience across cross-functional and multi-jurisdictional roles. He has a proven track record of managing large & diverse teams, developing & implementing strategy, innovations, and formulating high impact policy frameworks.

At EESL, Mr. Kapoor will oversee existing programmes and initiatives with a futuristic outlook to enhance India’s energy transition and conservation efforts. With his expertise and domain knowledge, he is set to play an instrumental role in the company’s business development through strategic partnerships that help expand its smart solutions’ portfolio. With this, he envisages bringing about the necessary shift in the energy consumption patterns of Indian citizens to help support the country’s Net Zero goals.

Before joining EESL, Mr. Kapoor was the Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Power (MoP) for power distribution and reforms, IT & Cyber Security, OL and social media. He led the formulation and implementation of a myriad of schemes; private participation and PPP initiatives; ease of doing business reforms; Utility reforms; and special interventions, as well as several other projects pertaining to the Electricity Distribution sector.

During his tenure at the MoP, he supervised and operationalized flagship schemes such as Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS), National Electricity Fund (NEF), Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana DDUGJY, Smart grids for smart cities, Prime Ministers Development Program in J&K and Ladakh, privatization of Distribution in Union Territories, among others.

Prior to MoP, Mr. Kapoor was the Director at the Research Designs & Standards Organization (RDSO) under Ministry of Railways (GoI). At RDSO, he conceptualized and executed the development of high-capacity low-cost Autorack Freight trains for carrying cars, introduced innovative freight car solutions for incubation on Indian Railways, devised technical policies and regulations concerning the safe transportation of freight trains, including multimodal & over dimensional consignment (ODC) trains, led design validation and introduction of heaviest ever ODC freight car on Indian Railways, among others.

Mr. Kapoor is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering. He also received his post-graduate degree in Public Administration from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and has also attended the Advanced Management Program in Public Policy (AMPPP) from the Indian School of Business.

All Sessions by Vishal Kapoor

DAY 01 | Thursday February 2, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Executive Dialogue 2 – Facilitating Green Finance in Energy Efficiency through Public-Private Financing

New Delhi

Session Brief: Indian states have to achieve the national energy savings target of 150 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) by 2030, which equals approx. 25% of Total Final Energy Consumption and is equivalent to 1750 TWh (Billion units) of electricity, avoiding 1,400 million tonnes of coal, reducing 1250 million tonnes of CO2, and will cumulatively avoid 400 GWs of generation capacity. These ambitious targets are critical to ushering in a net zero economy, as proclaimed in India’s Nationally Determined Commitments. These cannot be achieved without a funding mandate and budgetary provisions that can easily come from the avoided capital expenditure needed to build supply-side infrastructure. This will allow public investments to be matched by 3-5x by private sector investments as evidence shows from global case studies and India’s own experience from the renewable sector.

Both houses have now passed modifications to the Energy Conservation bill. The Bill amends the Energy Conservation Act, of 2001, to empower the central government to specify a carbon credit trading scheme. For this, the modalities will have to be worked upon by involving various stakeholders to structure the market. The panellists will share perspectives about how the PPP model can unlock a larger financial base where both the voluntary international and domestic carbon market may aid in the better recovery of EE investments.

Attracting investments and scaling up finances in energy efficiency has been a long-standing challenge. Since energy efficiency-enabled benefits are often realized over a longer time horizon and happen in distributed and smaller quantum, an aggregation and risk-sharing mechanism between the public and private sector parties can help facilitate larger investments. The session’s deliberations will explore what a successful business model looks like to pave the way for large-scale investments and recovery of those investments to transform the energy efficiency market. The session aims to discuss the emerging trends and challenges to facilitate green investment to enhance energy efficiency by replicating the successful trends in the renewables sector (e.g., SECI), which used to face similar challenges 10 years ago that the energy efficiency industry has faced over several decades.

The dialogue’s deliberations will discuss how the launch of a successful business model in the energy efficiency ecosystem where the carbon market could aid in the recovery of investments and help transform the energy efficiency ecosystem.

Keeping this context in mind, here are some high-level questions for the moderator and panellists to consider to help in a dynamic exchange of ideas and deliberations, which will lead to some compelling options and recommendations on how to move the EE industry forward:

  • What can we learn, and how can we replicate the success of the renewables sector in the energy efficiency sector?
  • What kind of innovative investments and risk-sharing/mitigating models deliver, scale, and replicate the success that India enjoyed in the LED segment to be extended to other low-hanging fruits (e.g. cooling appliances esp. super-efficient fans and air-conditioners, smart meters, electric vehicles, efficient motors, Cooling as a Service, etc.)
  • How will carbon markets aid in better recovery of EE investments as an additional revenue stream?
  • What will the institutional mechanism look like to give confidence to all the stakeholders to realize the multi-billion dollar potential of the energy efficiency industry?