In Bay Area, CM Edappadi K Palaniswami gets to see Tesla cars and green energy

Chennai: As a part of three nation overseas trip to woo foreign investors to Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami was in San Francisco and visited electric vehicle major, Tesla Inc and Bloom Energy, a green energy firm.

Chief Minister, along with the delegation, visited the battery car manufacturing unit and met the top management in the company. Tesla builds not only all-electric vehicles but also infinitely scalable clean energy generation and storage products. All Tesla electric vehicles are produced at its factory in California, where the vast majority of the vehicle’s components are also made. Tesla also manufactures a unique set of energy solutions, Powerwall, Powerpack and Solar Roof, enabling homeowners, businesses, and utilities to manage renewable energy generation, storage, and consumption.

Bloom Energy Servers converts solid oxide fuel cell into electricity. Designed for modularity — similar to a building block, any number of systems can be clustered together in various configurations to form solutions from hundreds of kilowatts to many tens of megawatts. Each Energy Server produces 200 to 300 kilowatts of power in a footprint roughly equivalent to that of half a standard 30-foot shipping container.

Bloom Energy traces its roots to work performed by Dr. K.R. Sridhar, Bloom founder and Chief Executive Officer, in connection with creating a technology to convert Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support. Dr. Sridhar and his team built a fuel cell for NASA capable of producing air and fuel from electricity generated by a solar panel. CM has visited the Bloom Energy plant and held discussion with the management.

Meanwhile, Tamils settled in USA have expressed their willingness to set up their companies in Tamil Nadu. Among others Krish Panu, Managing Director, Point Guard Ventures, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, Ganesh V.Iyer of NIO, Raj Sardana of American Cyber Systems, Bavid Frigstad and Abrar Hussain, MDs of Frost & Sullivan, Arun Sreelam CEO of Bosoon Motors, Balaji Bakthavatchalam of Altius Capitol Inc. Venkat Rangan of Clari, Easwaran Ramalingam founder of EverForce.com and Gopalakrishnan. They have come forward to set their companies in Tamil Nadu.

Among others Ministers MC Sampath, R.B. Udhayakumar, K.T.Rajenthra Bhalaji, Chief Secretary, K Shanmugam, Principal Secretary, N Muruganantham, Principal Secretary, Fisheries, Dr K Gopal, Principal Secretary, IT, Dr Santhosh Babu and CM Secretary, Dr S Vijaykumar were present on the occasion.