Interviews

Nexus Power: Redefining the Future of Sustainable Energy

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Nishita Baliarsingh, CEO & Founder, Nexus Power

 

  1. Could you please provide a brief overview of Nexus Power and its core offering?

At Nexus, we make rechargeable, bio – organic and bio – degradable batteries from crop residue. The ingeniously developed batteries charge faster and last longer than its counterparts. Nexus batteries reduce dependence on lithium and by using crop residue, we keep a check on air pollution.

 

  1. What challenges do you face in advocating for and implementing bio-battery technology compared to traditional energy source?

The beginning was exciting but was on shaky grounds. We had to bootstrap and being freshers, just out of college, we barely had money in hand. So, we started by doing our research work online, by signing up on E – journals from our institutional mail IDs.

Eventually, with a lot of reading and understanding of the E-mobility genre, we stumbled upon the idea we were looking for. Since then, we went on to experiment and developed a proof-of-concept. The initial challenges broadly belonged to the technical sphere as our product is purely based on innovation. A lot of time and energy was spent on research work and trial & error experimentation. There were days when we wanted to drop the idea and shift to something else, but gradually things began to settle for us.

Battery technology research is booming and people across the globe are thinking about it, much more than before. Not just companies but technological institutes are also putting their heart into innovating in this domain. We consider all battery manufacturers, EV manufacturers making their own batteries and R&D institutes as potential competitors of Nexus. We haven’t come across a firm doing the exact same thing that we are doing with cell chemistry yet, but with the way start-ups are coming up in India, it is difficult to predict the longevity of our uniqueness. Needless to say, that is why we have been filing for multiple patents and copyrights.

It was a very different feeling when we began our research work in this sector. Coming this far was only a dream at that moment. As time passed by, in the entire process we realized that entrepreneurship is not only about everything we do physically that makes it work but it is about the emotional strength the founders possess, it is about having the same enthusiasm throughout, it is about believing in yourself and your team and most importantly, it is a journey and it has no particular destination. We believe in innovating to sustain and dream of a greener planet Earth.

 

  1. What motivated Nexus Power to explore alternative energy solutions, specifically through bio-batteries?

Sustainable lifestyle techniques had been a fascination for us as we understood the importance of taking care of the environment. Luckily, during the founder’s course in business management we were given more insights into the world of sustainability and in the middle of one such classroom discussion, we decided to build something that could transform the way people looked at the mobility industry. Our initial plan was to manufacture electric vehicles in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. EV was an upcoming trend in the market, back in 2016, but the main concern was that even after multiple companies were promising to offer EVs, the buyers were not interested in opting for them over the IC Engine based cars. This gap in the demand and supply forced them to investigate the causes behind the low acceptance of electric vehicles. A few major drawbacks identified were long battery charging time, high-priced cars, lack of local sources for procurement of Lithium and toxicity hazards. We sincerely wanted to help improve the E-mobility sector. Our research made us realize that to make electric vehicles popular, the battery has to be perfect first. Keeping this in mind, one night at the terrace, both of us, unanimously decided to work on battery technologies and build a green alternative which is equally efficient and effective as the batteries in the market currently. At that moment we had no clue what we exactly wanted to make. Also, neither of us was a science graduate and hence we had to read a lot to understand every bit of the genre we had chosen. An old bio chemistry book from our grandfather’s library gave us our first breakthrough towards innovating in the battery technology. There was a statement which said “Peptides may have potential benefits in electrolytes” and that was the turning point. We pushed ourselves into continuous research and development and finally, sometime in 2020, ended up founding ‘Nexus Power’ with an interesting innovation in EV batteries.

 

  1. What opportunities do you see for collaboration and partnerships to accelerate the adoption of bio-battery technology?

The battery market seems to be a market of $322Billion USD, out of which we are looking forward to address $74Billion USD. This market is majorly dominated with Lithium-Ion batteries. The opportunities in this market are vast as the existing batteries are harmful, dangerous, are of high cost, lithium is scares in Indian market.

The batteries we are building are less dangerous, build with raw material which is sustainable & bio-degradable and will be less in cost. Apart from that, we are hoping to build multiple by-products from the raw materials to create additional revenues.

 

  1. How significant is the reduction in carbon footprint achieved through the use of Nexus Power’s bio-batteries?

Nexus is building a battery from crop residue & helping to reduce dependence on carbon. Our batteries will be procured & build from natural materials. The batteries that are build will be completely sustainable, bio-degradable in nature. We are willing to contribute efferently in the reduction of carbon footprint. These batteries will provide better performance than the traditional batteries.

 

  1. What are your plans for scaling up your operations and reaching new markets?

We plan to bring our product to the market by the end of financial year 2024-25 and be ready for commercialisation. Initially the operations will be done in the Indian market by reaching to various OEMs for pilot testing. For which we are already in conversation with multiple OEMs and finally get large scale manufacturing began.

 

  1. How has startup Odisha helped you in your entrepreneurial journey?

Startup Odisha have played a significant role in our entrepreneurial journey but not only providing funds to kick start our project but also time and again mentored us and gave us guidance to be on path and understand the market, build better product with the help industry experts. We acknowledge all the guidance that Startup Odisha have helped us with.