With over two decades of diverse experience in the power sector, Lalit Tejwani, managing director, Rongxin Power Electronic (RXPE) India, believes power is a key indicator and driver of a country’s development. Before joining RXPE, Tejwani worked with Siemens in Singapore and earlier with ABB as head of its railway business in India, Middle East and Africa. He has experience across various sectors like po-wer, metals, cement, water, material handling and general industrial automation.
He was motivated to join the power sector owing to the major opportunities arising from the huge gap between India and other developed countries, especially in per capita electricity consumption, and the inadequate transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure.
Commenting on the challenges faced by the sector, Tejwani notes that the T&D segment is fragmented, involving several interfaces between the power generators and the end-consumers. “State-controlled T&D companies are struggling to augment the quantity and quality of power supplied to consumers. Besides, they are unable to maintain commercially viable operations, thus creating large non-performing assets. Time will determine how effectively the recently launched Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana will address this aspect,” he says.
Tejwani believes that HVDC transmission plays an important role in transmission capacity enhancement, better regional and cross-border inter-connections, and renewable power integration. Hence, it is an exciting time for state-of-the-art multi-level voltage source converters like static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) and HVDC technologies. He recalls his most memorable assignment as working on a Powergrid tender that entailed designing, engineering and executing a project for reactive power compensation (of 550 MVAR) at its substations in the western region.
Tejwani follows a consultative style of management, involving his colleagues in decision-making. He supports open discussion, learning and taking others’ opinions into consideration in order to get different perspectives on a situation.
Tejwani is an electrical engineer from Pune University and has a diploma in business management from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. Outside of work, he likes to spend time with his family, which includes his wife, Soni, and their son. He also likes listening to ghazals, old Hindi songs and jazz, and is an avid reader and traveller.