In a state better known for its coastline and its cyclones than its clean-energy ambitions, Satyajit Tarei has spent the better part of two decades trying to change that equation, one solar rooftop and one rural household at a time. As the founder of Brundabati Agro & Power Solutions (BAPS), Tarei sits at the intersection of two causes that rarely share the same boardroom table: sustainable energy and agricultural livelihoods. It is a combination that reflects not a business plan drawn up in isolation, but a career built from the ground up, literally, in the villages and districts of Odisha where he first cut his teeth in social development work.
Tarei’s journey to entrepreneurship did not begin with a pitch deck. It began with more than 22 years of work in social development, sales, strategic planning, and stakeholder engagement, a career path that placed him closer to farmers, panchayats, and policy tables than to venture capitalists. His stint as State Coordinator of the Special Development Council, Odisha, gave him a front-row seat to the state’s development challenges, while his continuing role as a life member of the Indian Red Cross Society speaks to a commitment to public welfare that predates, and arguably shaped, his business instincts. When he eventually founded BAPS in 2016, headquartered in Bhubaneswar, he was not stepping into an unfamiliar world so much as formalizing one he already understood deeply.
That understanding shows in how BAPS has positioned itself. Rather than chasing the glamour end of the renewable energy sector, the company has built its identity around unglamorous, high-friction work: baseline surveys of solar pump installations for the Odisha Renewable Energy Development Agency, safety audits of 214 solarized health facilities in Koraput district, MSME energy demand aggregation in Jagatpur and Rourkela, and a strategic partnership with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet as a Program Management Unit for rooftop solar among small and medium enterprises. It is the kind of work that rarely makes headlines but quietly determines whether clean energy policy actually reaches the ground, and it reflects Tarei’s evident preference for structural, systems-level impact over standalone installations.
The agricultural side of the business tells a similar story. Under Tarei’s leadership, BAPS has pushed solar-powered irrigation, decentralized microgrid systems for farming operations, and renewable-powered cold storage aimed at cutting post-harvest losses, initiatives that treat clean energy not as an end in itself but as a lever for rural livelihoods. Projects such as the country’s first fully energy-independent green school in Nayagarh district, built with solar power, bio-digesters, and off-grid solutions back in 2019, and a wind-solar hybrid power project in Kalahandi that pioneered non-coastal hybridization models, suggest an entrepreneur willing to experiment in terrain, both literal and technological, that others in the sector have been slower to enter.
Recognition has followed, if quietly. Tarei received the Sabuj Santan Award in 2019 from the Swami Vivekananda Trust and the Best Green Energy Awareness Award in 2023 from Indian by Birth, accolades that, taken together with his organizational track record, point to a reputation built steadily rather than loudly. For a state where renewable energy adoption has often trailed national conversation, Satyajit Tarei’s career represents something more durable than a single company’s growth chart: a sustained argument, made project by project and district by district, that clean energy and rural prosperity in Odisha do not have to be separate ambitions.
