Arno Harris Joins Azure Power

Solar power developer and operator, Azure Power announced the induction of Arno Harris to its Board of Directors on May 17, 2016. The former Founder, CEO and Chairman of Recurrent Energy will join the group as an independent director.

As founder of Recurrent Energy, US based utility scale solar project developer, Harris helped his company grow its annual revenues to $1.4 billion with 1.5 GW of utility contracts; Recurrent is now a subsidiary of Canadian Solar. A serial entrepreneur, he was also the CEO of Prevalent Power Inc., and started companies as RedEnvelope, WineShopper.com and Novo Media Group, Inc.

Welcoming him to the team, Inderpreet Wadhwa, founder and CEO of Azure Power, said, "Arno is an industry veteran and his solid reputation for disciplined execution will help Azure Power in its next phase of growth with greater fiscal discipline and governance."

Harris comes to the Azure board with over 15 years of experience in the solar sector. He is also a board member emeritus and former board chair of the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), along with being a board member of Advanced Energy Economy Institute.

Harris stated, "Azure offers an attractive value proposition for Indian solar power customers by utilizing the best technology with unmatched execution expertise and experience. I am a big believer of the company and look forward to working with Azure Power board and team to drive long term value for all stakeholders."

Other directors on Azure Board include former SolarCity CFO, Robert Kelly, Foundation Capital co-Founder William B Elmore, Helion Venture Partners co-Founder Sanjeev Aggarwal, among others.

Azure was founded in 2008 and says it installed India's first utility scale solar project in 2009 and India's first distributed MW-scale solar rooftop project in 2013. The company claims to have the largest operational portfolio under National Solar Mission 1 with a portfolio of 800+ MW in various stages in 14 states and 500+ solar rooftops covered across 10 states as of end of January 2016.