An Unique Interview with Navneet Daga, co-founder & CEO of Zenergize, India’s solely 100% indigenous power-electronics product firm
As India accelerates its photo voltaic and EV shift, vital energy infrastructure stays vulnerability-prone and import-dependent.
On this unique interview, Navneet Daga, Co-Founder & CEO of Zenergize, discusses how India’s solely 100% indigenous power-electronics firm is pioneering vitality independence by rugged, Silicon Carbide-based expertise constructed particularly for Indian situations.
Most of India’s energy electronics are at present imported or assembled from overseas kits. What are the precise “Indian situations” that imported methods fail to deal with?
Navneet Daga: A big portion of the facility electronics at present deployed in India is designed for working environments that differ considerably from these on the bottom.
Indian situations contain excessive ambient temperatures that usually cross 45–50°C, frequent voltage fluctuations, unstable grid behaviour, dust-heavy environments, and high-utilisation cycles the place chargers typically run repeatedly for lengthy durations.
Most imported or kit-assembled methods are initially engineered for comparatively steady grids and reasonable climates. When deployed in India, they typically expertise thermal derating, slower charging speeds, interrupted classes throughout voltage fluctuations, or diminished part life because of warmth stress.
In lots of instances, cooling methods, firmware logic, and thermal design are merely not optimised for these realities.
With the partnership with Infineon, how are you co-developing superior semiconductor options particularly for the Indian grid?
Navneet Daga: Our partnership with Infineon is targeted on integrating superior Silicon Carbide (SiC) semiconductor expertise into power-electronics methods which can be particularly engineered for Indian working situations.
The collaboration goes past part sourcing and consists of technical and application-level assist to optimise system structure, thermal efficiency, effectivity, and long-term reliability.
India’s grid setting presents distinctive challenges, together with excessive ambient temperatures, voltage fluctuations, and demanding working cycles throughout each EV and distributed vitality functions.
By integrating Infineon’s SiC energy gadgets into our methods, we’re capable of considerably scale back switching losses, enhance thermal resilience, and design extra compact and environment friendly power-electronics platforms.
A key focus of the collaboration is system-level optimisation. We’re working carefully with Infineon to enhance how our merchandise deal with real-world Indian working situations whereas additionally shortening improvement cycles and accelerating time-to-market for next-generation charging and vitality options.
Your merchandise span each EV charging and photo voltaic inverters. How do these two ecosystems discuss to one another inside the Zenergize framework?
Navneet Daga: At a expertise stage, EV chargers and photo voltaic inverters are each constructed on a shared power-electronics basis. That widespread structure permits us to leverage the identical experience throughout energy conversion, thermal engineering, firmware, management methods, and grid interplay throughout each ecosystems.
We see EV charging and renewable vitality more and more converging right into a extra built-in vitality ecosystem.
As a result of we personal the {hardware}, firmware, and management stack internally, our methods are designed to assist smarter vitality administration capabilities over time, together with higher grid integration, load balancing, and renewable-energy-linked charging functions.
From a enterprise perspective as effectively, each verticals cater to a considerably overlapping buyer base throughout infrastructure builders, business deployments, and energy-focused operators, creating sturdy operational and market synergies.
Is your {hardware} modular? How straightforward is it for a technician in a Tier-2 metropolis to service a Zenergize unit?
Navneet Daga: Our design philosophy is centred round long-term reliability, distant diagnostics, and serviceability at scale. Since we personal the entire expertise stack, together with our PCB designs, firmware, and management methods, our chargers are constructed for component-level fault identification relatively than full unit alternative.
Our in-house PCB structure integrates sensors that repeatedly monitor key parameters like voltage, present, resistance, and temperature throughout the system.
When a fault happens, this information helps pinpoint the precise part that wants consideration, whether or not it’s a energy converter module, management card, inductors, or some other half.
This implies a technician solely wants to switch that particular part relatively than the complete unit, making repairs quicker, extra reasonably priced, and simple.
This modularity is by design. Every key practical block of the charger is field-replaceable, which suggests a educated technician in a Tier-2 or Tier-3 metropolis can service the unit with the correct alternative half, with no need to ship the unit again or depend on any abroad OEM assist.
On prime of this, our distant monitoring and predictive upkeep capabilities permit us to flag points early, and in lots of instances resolve them by software program with none bodily go to in any respect.
Proudly owning the complete expertise stack, from {hardware} design to diagnostics, offers us a powerful benefit in protecting our chargers operating reliably as we scale throughout markets past metros.
Scaling manufacturing to 10,000–12,000 models monthly pre-launch is an aggressive transfer. What gave you the arrogance that the market demand was prepared for this quantity?
Navneet Daga: The boldness comes from what we’re already seeing on the bottom. India’s EV infrastructure market is shifting past early experimentation and coming into a section the place operators are prioritising uptime, reliability, and whole value of possession way more critically.
We’re seeing sturdy demand from fleet operators, cost level operators, and business automobile ecosystems which have already skilled the restrictions of imported methods in Indian situations.
These prospects function at excessive utilisation ranges and require infrastructure that performs persistently beneath warmth, grid fluctuations, and intensive day by day utilization.
Moreover, India’s coverage momentum round EV adoption, charging infrastructure growth, and renewable vitality integration has created a powerful long-term demand setting.
We at present head into FY27 with a confirmed order pipeline of Rs 40–50 crore, which additional validates the market readiness for indigenous, high-performance energy electronics options.
How does being 100% indigenous have an effect on your pricing technique in opposition to lower-cost, mass-produced imports?
Navneet Daga: The market is step by step shifting from evaluating chargers purely on upfront value to evaluating them on long-term efficiency, uptime, service responsiveness, and whole value of possession.
Imported methods could seem lower-cost initially, however when deployed beneath Indian working situations, points reminiscent of thermal throttling, downtime, delayed servicing, and diminished reliability can considerably improve operational prices over time.
For top-utilisation prospects, even small effectivity features translate into significant long-term financial savings.
As a result of we personal the expertise stack end-to-end, we’re capable of optimise merchandise particularly for Indian situations whereas additionally sustaining tighter management over assist, updates, and lifecycle efficiency.
We imagine long-term worth creation comes from dependable, environment friendly, and domestically supported infrastructure relatively than solely the bottom landed value.
How is Zenergize contributing to the native expertise ecosystem for energy electronics and semiconductor design in India?
Navneet Daga: Certainly one of our core goals has been to construct deep engineering functionality inside India relatively than working as an assembly-led firm.
Our groups work throughout energy electronics, firmware, thermal engineering, mechanical design, management methods, and software program improvement completely in-house.
We imagine India already has a really sturdy engineering expertise base, however the bigger alternative lies in making that expertise extra industry-ready and creating stronger ecosystems round deep-tech R&D and product possession.
By constructing expertise from floor up, we’re contributing towards creating specialised capabilities in superior energy electronics and embedded methods engineering inside the nation.
As India’s EV and renewable vitality ecosystem scales, constructing home R&D functionality can be simply as vital as manufacturing capability.
Does Zenergize have plans to export this “constructed for harsh situations” tech to different rising markets in Africa or Southeast Asia?
Navneet Daga: We imagine many rising markets throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and different creating areas face working situations similar to India, together with excessive temperatures, grid instability, and infrastructure reliability challenges. Merchandise engineered for Indian situations naturally have sturdy relevance in these markets as effectively.
Nonetheless, at this stage, our full focus is on India. We’re in the course of scaling our deployments, strengthening our manufacturing, and deepening our presence throughout the Indian EV and energy electronics ecosystem.
That is the place our vitality, consideration, and sources are absolutely directed, and we imagine getting this proper at house is a very powerful factor we will do proper now.
What we’re constructing, although, is a powerful expertise and product basis rooted in real-world efficiency relatively than controlled-environment benchmarks.
Over time, we imagine that this type of engineering depth, constructed round reliability, adaptability, and serviceability in demanding situations, can have a spot in international markets the place related challenges exist.
Extra broadly, we see India evolving past assembly-led manufacturing towards changing into a world hub for deeply engineered power-electronics merchandise designed for demanding real-world working situations.
Navneet Daga’s imaginative and prescient for Zenergize proves that true vitality safety lies in mastering core expertise, not simply assembling components.
By changing fragile imports with resilient, AI-monitored native improvements, Zenergize is quietly engineering the strong basis India must maintain its inexperienced vitality revolution.
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