Guest Blog by Upendra Tripathy
Several years ago, as Secretary of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), I visited a former Delhi thermal power plant that had been converted to a solar park. While visiting, I learned that software repair of one of the solar park’s panels had been delayed several days. The reason for the delay was surprising – the mechanic had to come to Delhi from Chennai but had a fever. A similar situation presented itself shortly thereafter when I visited the National Institute of Technology, Calicut – an electrical engineering professor recounted how he had to wait for a repair mechanic to come from Bengaluru after a vital component of his rooftop solar failed. Over a cup of tea, he remarked, “if we could only have a system like Ola or Uber for solar mechanics who could set things right in no time!”
The dream of a simple software…