Renewable Energy Analyst Interview

Well designed, evidence backed policies that support technological innovations, are key to bringing large scale impact in our society !

Deepika Bagaria, our next pathbreaker, Fundamental Analysis Manager at EDF Renewables North America, models energy markets in the US and Canada to forecast future energy price curves for solar and wind energy technologies.

Deepika talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about how her diverse experiences in technical and advisory roles at NTPC shaped her interests in public policy .

For students, the transition to a fossil free world is not just a technological challenge but also a social challenge that requires diverse skillsets that encourage practical solutions !

Deepika, what were your growing up years like?

I was born in a small village in Rajasthan. My father did his bachelors in commerce, and my mother did her schooling till 9^th standard. Post my birth, my parents moved to Surat (Gujarat) where I spent the initial 28 years of my life.

I was an introverted child who was terrified with the idea of meeting relatives or friends too often. I made my first friend in 6^th standard and had few till 10^th standard. I didn’t have a lot of interests either – I would usually be at home helping my mother in some house chores or just lost in my own world. Even reading non-curriculum books was something I got exposed to only during my college when I read my first Dan Brown “The Da Vinci Code”.

I was in an ICSE board school till tenth standard. Being from a traditional family with limited exposure, I didn’t know a lot about the various career options available. All I knew was, one needs to select between Commerce, Arts or Science in 11^th standard, and if one selects science, they must select between medical and engineering fields.

What did you do for graduation/post-graduation?

For graduation, I did my bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering (BTech) from National Institute of Technology, Surat (2005 – 2009). 

In 2016, I did a certification course “Energy Risk Professional”. This used to be endowed by the Global Association of Risk Professionals, but is now discontinued. 

For post-graduation, I did a Masters in Public Policy with specialization in Environmental Policy – from University of California, San Diego, USA (2020-2022). I got a 100% merit based scholarship for my masters due to my rich experience of ten years with an Indian Public Sector Utility.

Can you talk about some of the influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional, and unique career?

While in school, I had no idea what I would like to do in my life. Being an extreme introvert didn’t help. After 10^th standard, I chose to take science for three reasons. One, I used to read all the new equipment user guides in my home which made my mother believe that I am interested in science/engineering. Two, science seemed to be the more respected field of study. Finally, my elder sister had taken science. At this stage, I also pivoted from ICSE Board to CBSE board school, as college entrance exams were believed to be easier to crack with a CBSE board education at the time.

For my graduation, I neither had strong opinions about my career choices, nor a lot of interest in a promising career. Engineering just seemed to be a natural choice for me since I was genuinely interested in the how and why of things.

The choice of my post-graduation in public policy, on the other hand, was a very conscious choice as I will discuss later. 

Tell us about your career path.

After my engineering, I joined NTPC Limited, the largest power producer of the country. I was working in a power plant for six years as an electrical maintenance engineer, making sure the electrical machines were up and running all the time. As a part of this role, I got trained in project management. While boring and monotonous at times, it was very thrilling at other times. For example, when there would be a failure in an electrical machine, all the employees would come to the plant. Everyone would wait for me to resolve the electrical issue, so that they can complete the follow-up items to re-start the power plant. It was critical both from the perspective of avoiding power outages in the grid, as well as to avoid significant losses for the company.

While I loved that work, the bigger picture of how the electricity sector in India and the world is evolving always intrigued me. I used to read about the sector, participate in local and national level competitions on new technologies and market structures, and keep myself abreast about the commercial aspects of our company, despite my job not requiring this. All these efforts honed me enough to secure the position of a technical adviser to NTPC’s Chairman & Managing Director. I was the first candidate chosen among 10000+ eligible employees. This role was the single most important event that shaped my life. Working for one of the most respected officers of the country instilled in me vision, values, and confidence.

As an adviser, I had three major responsibilities. 

One, I was responsible for his public speeches both inside the organization and outside. This was a very interesting part, since I had to understand the Chairman’s thought process, as well as be one step ahead of the ongoing dialogue in the country to show true leadership on the part of the Chairman. Having a range of audiences from employees for a safety drill, to the world at large for an annual general meeting, to meetings with highly skilled global executives, I got an opportunity to refine my skills on simple and targeted communication, and structured thought process. 

The second major role was to further the pet projects of the Chairman through coordination with the functional groups across the company. This was much harder than I had imagined because change is a slow process laden with inertia. Among other things, I learned how to think about organizational structures and nudges.

The third and closest to my heart role was to revisit the policies of the organization – specifically in the areas of environment and human resources – and work with the respective functions to improve them to enhance the company’s effectiveness. This required diving into unchartered areas, developing a systems thinking and advocacy.

Two topics I worked on during this role have shaped me immensely. One, I came to understand the impact of policy making, through my work on organizational and national policies. Two, I became sensitized about the environment and climate issues when I started to understand the scale of pollution because of power generation, its impacts on human and nature’s health, and what is happening across the world to combat climate change.

Why did you plan to major in Public Policy?

These experiences made me realize that a masters in public policy would be the degree I had been looking for all the eleven years that passed between my graduation and post-graduation. I am very content that I took my sweet time to find what really intrigued me for my higher education.

The good amount of work experience I had, transformed my learning process during my masters program. I could relate the teachings to the real-world problems and thus perform much better than my own expectations. Already knowing my interest areas helped me build the right connections, study the right courses and take up the right projects. This also helped me secure some excellent research opportunities with world-renowned faculties such as David Victor. Given my interest in India and environment, I centered most of my research projects around them.

For instance, I studied the impact of electricity access in 6 Indian states on groundwater use for agriculture. This indicated the impact of infrastructure development on the potential environmental hazards and gave a framework to think about ways to avoid such exploitation while ensuring development. This work was widely recognized in the university as critical for developing countries like India and my research paper was awarded the best quantitative research of the year.

During my masters, I also gained the skills that enabled me to work on other important topics such as use of remote sensing data for policy formulation. For example, one of my projects was to use satellite data to understand the impact of community-based water conservation on groundwater levels in Rajasthan. This resulted in a variety of recommendations on whether and how such community work can be better channeled and can be made more effective.

Before discussing the next stage of my career, I would admit that I am not doing exactly what I would love to. I wanted to work in the social sector after my masters, but due to some personal circumstances, I took up the first opportunity I could get my hands on – and which brought me to my current company EDF Renewables North America.

EDF is the largest power generation & distribution company in France and has its presence globally. It is one of the most well known organizations for its best practices across the world. I work for EDF in their North American division, which is focused on building and operating renewable energy projects across US, Canada and Mexico. My role is to model the entire energy market and forecast future energy price curves for solar and wind energy technologies. More on this later.

How did you get your first break?

For me, it was never like I actively sought for something specific and achieved it, so calling any stage of my career path as a “break” doesn’t seem justified to me. My first job with NTPC was through my placement cell of my undergraduate university (NIT Surat), and I had never planned for it.

For my current job at EDF, I applied to many organizations through their websites, and landed on one job in the US and one in India. Due to some personal constraints, I had to choose the one in the US.

While I secured both my jobs without networking, I would say networking is unarguably the best way to get a job, and many of my college peers used this. On my part, my being an introvert was a constant barrier in me being able to develop those relationships with professors, alumni etc.

What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?

Again, I don’t believe I had to combat any major challenges in my life. The couple of things that come to mind, which are not exactly challenging, are:

• After working in a power plant for six long years which was mostly project and labor management, when I joined the CEO’s office in NTPC in 2016, I had to make a drastic shift from mechanical and technical aspects to mentally challenging and strategic aspects. This transition took time, but having great mentors helped a lot.
• When I started off with my masters in the US, my baby was 5 months old, and COVID had just struck. Navigating through an intensive degree program in that situation and after 11 years of my graduation, required some perseverance.
• When I started off to work with my current organization (EDF), it was a major transition for me: Major cultural shift from working in India to US, from public sector (NTPC) to private sector (EDF), from fossil fuel-based industry to renewable industry, and from relatively simple Indian energy market to complex US energy market. I am still grappling with this one.

In all these instances, my passion to continuously improve myself and do something positive for the world has kept me going.

Where do you work now? What problems do you solve?

I have been working for EDF Renewables North America since the past one year. It is one of the biggest energy companies globally, and it is great to be a part of this big family.

EDF builds and operates renewable energy projects such as solar and wind energy. My role is to model some of the energy markets in the US and Canada and forecast future energy price curves for solar and wind energy technologies. This is important because this helps us calculate the expected revenues from any upcoming project. This helps us bid for the projects in a way that ensures profitable investments in an extremely competitive environment.

I have also started a non-profit venture called GeoSense. This is to help non-profits, public sector utilities and small and medium scale industries with their mapping and geospatial analysis needs to enable them to expand their operations. I have worked on three to four projects till now through this venture. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to maintain its momentum given I am doing a full-time job and also am a mother to a three year old.

What skills are required for your role? How did you acquire the skills?

I would say, I need three sets of skills for my job. One, I need to have an in-depth understanding of the North America energy market. Having worked in NTPC, an electricity company for 10 years, I do understand the energy market terminology quite well. My Energy Risk Professional certification (which I pursued in 2016) introduced me to the international markets, including the US. Having said that, I am still actively learning about the specifics of the US market through my job.

Two, since my job is related to modeling the energy market, it is quite heavy on analysis. I need to have a very logical thinking mindset and programming skills (I can code in R and Python). I think basic coding skills are a must in any kind of job these days. I learnt python and R during my masters degree, and again, am continuously learning more in my job. The logical thinking mindset is a much longer process which got developed throughout my life. Major contributors have been my engineering degree, all the entrance exams I have taken till date (which are many!), and my masters degree program.

Third, I need to have good communication skills. Usually, we feel this is only about being able to talk smoothly. This is important, but there are many additional aspects of good communication, like, being mindful of who your audience is, what they understand about the discussion, what is their role, what is your goal from the instance of communication, etc.

How does your work benefit society? 

I work with a renewable energy company. Energy is critical for ensuring good quality of life, education, health, etc. Renewable energy is clean and helps to replace dirty energy from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas which produces pollution. Thus, my work is enabling the world for clean and sustainable development.

Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!

I am very passionate about sustainable water management. While working as the technical adviser to the Chairman at NTPC, I proposed to him that NTPC should have a Water Conservation Policy, given that thermal power plants consume a large amount of water. He agreed, but since I have no formal education or experience in the field of water, it was unchartered territory for me. I did a lot of research and visits to understand what the best practices in this field are which are relevant to our organization. But the bigger challenge was not to formulate the policy, but to convince the management – teams such as Engineering, Environmental Management and Operations – about the importance of taking concrete steps and allocating a budget for water conservation in the absence of government-imposed regulations. Gradually, everyone came on board and the policy was able to see the light of the day. This is my most special work till date.

Your advice to students based on your experience?

For me, the main mantra has been to give 100% to what I am doing, and more than 100% to the bits that excite me. With continuous self-improvement and being mindful of opportunities from wherever they come, has brought me to where I am. So, my takeaway is that there is no substitute for hard work and perseverance.

Honestly, I think I could have achieved more if I had gotten better exposure early on. So, talk to as many people as you can and keep yourself updated.

I have given a lot of entrance exams in my life for my post-graduation, especially for MBA. But I neither got into those colleges nor did I choose to get an admission. But when this opportunity to do a masters in public policy came, there were no second thoughts about joining the program. Even though I am currently not working in a policy field, I am very content about my choice. Takeaway: Listen to your heart and don’t go with what everyone else is doing.

Like I said earlier, I am currently not doing something that I would love to do, which is, working for India in the environmental domain. At 36 years of age and with a seemingly successful career path, I am still figuring out things. But I still am hopeful that I will start working on something that truly brings me joy. Even though I am not entirely driven by the work I do currently, I still give my 100% to my current organization. Takeaway: don’t be afraid of wrong choices. Many people take a lifetime to figure out what they love, if they ever do. Be curious always and don’t give up.

Future Plans?

I plan to move to India soon, and either start something of my own or get associated with a relatively small team who is aligned to my passions. It will be something on environmental protection, preferably, water management. It will be a mix of research and implementation at the grassroots level.