As Hyderabad’s real estate sector continues to expand rapidly, energy efficiency within the built environment has become a critical component of climate action. Leading this conversation is Rohith Pallerla, founder and CEO of Hyderabad-based climate-tech company Zodhya. Founded alongside his co-founder and CTO, Sharathmani Chinnasetti, the IIT Madras chemical engineering duo pioneered an asset-light, plug-and-play AI platform that helps slash urban carbon footprints from day one without disrupting existing infrastructure.
Buildings contribute nearly 37 percent of global energy-related emissions and are a major cause of localised urban heat islands. Moving beyond passive measures such as planting trees, Zodhya’s proprietary software modules optimise commercial cooling and industrial machinery operations.
Successfully deployed across more than 75 locations worldwide, Rohith talks to CE about how Zodhya has improved aggregate asset efficiency by 22.39 percent and saved over 2 million kWh of electricity and more.
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World Environment Day highlights collective climate action. How do you see AI-powered energy management contributing to India’s sustainability goals, particularly in rapidly growing urban centres like Hyderabad?
When we look at emissions as a whole, the conversation has historically focused on passive measures such as planting trees. While those efforts are necessary, we have gone beyond them. The reality is that buildings contribute close to one-fourth of global emissions and nearly 37 percent of energy-related emissions, according to UNEP. Another major challenge we have noticed is the emergence of urban heat islands. As dense architectural blocks are built closer together, large amounts of heat become trapped within smaller areas, causing temperatures to rise significantly above natural levels. Energy consumption is a key factor because it directly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Our innovation focuses on minimising this localised heat impact while reducing a facility’s overall emissions. For perspective, our implementations at major buildings and airports in Hyderabad are saving approximately 126,000 kWh annually and reducing Scope 2 emissions by 90,720 kg of CO2 every month.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions businesses have about energy efficiency, and how can technology help bridge that gap?
One of the biggest misconceptions is that a monitoring system or static dashboard solves the entire problem. As the name suggests, monitoring systems only tell you the current status of operations. They do not adapt machine controls to changing conditions in real time.
Another challenge is that energy efficiency has traditionally been associated with expensive infrastructure upgrades and large capital investments. Zodhya bridges this gap by offering an asset-light technology layer that significantly improves the performance of existing equipment without requiring major hardware modifications. On average, across the corporate real estate sites we optimise, this intelligent software layer has improved baseline system performance by 10 percent to 30 percent without changing any core infrastructure.
This year’s World Environment Day encourages practical solutions for a greener future. Can you share how Zodhya’s technology helps organisations reduce their environmental footprint without major infrastructure investments?
Zodhya focuses on unlocking energy and load capacity that already exists within a facility but often remains unused. We have observed that nearly 50 percent to 60 percent of existing grid capacity goes unused at various points within corporate facilities. By unlocking this latent capacity through our system software, we reduce the need for immediate investments in additional grid infrastructure. This directly lowers regional grid stress and associated utility emissions. At the same time, our software optimises the performance of existing equipment, reducing environmental impact, lowering Scope 2 emissions, and minimising resource consumption. Across our client base, our platforms generate an average of Rs1 crore in annual energy savings per site, enabling organisations to scale their sustainability efforts responsibly.
As a climate-tech startup from Hyderabad, what role do you believe innovation and entrepreneurship can play in addressing environmental challenges?
Hyderabad is an ideal city for innovation because it allows startups to experiment, prototype, and scale solutions in an environment that closely resembles a global urban centre. The environmental issues we face locally are remarkably similar to those experienced across major commercial spaces worldwide. As entrepreneurs, it is our responsibility to build highly responsive and localised solutions that address these challenges. By combining advanced technology with sustainability, startups can create scalable business models that deliver meaningful impact. Looking at our global footprint gives me immense hope. Zodhya’s solutions have already optimised assets across more than 75 locations worldwide, resulting in over 1,500 tonnes of cumulativev Scope 2 CO2 reduction to date.
What was the moment when you realised energy inefficiency in buildings was not just a business opportunity, but an environmental challenge worth dedicating years of your life to solving?
Our first exposure to energy systems came while studying chemical engineering at IIT Madras, where we learned how industrial plants and large-scale processes operate. The spark for our product journey began within our university hostels. We started by analysing ways to optimise the hostel’s built environment through a lighting-efficiency project, as lighting represented a major share of energy consumption at the time. As we expanded our focus to commercial and corporate buildings, we realised that HVAC systems account for 60 percent to 70 percent of a building’s energy usage. Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory further highlighted that 33 percent to 50 percent of generated energy is wasted at the residential, commercial, and industrial levels. That enormous gap became the turning point that convinced us to dedicate our careers to solving this challenge.
Can you explain in simple terms how Zodhya’s technology helps buildings reduce energy consumption while maintaining comfort?
We have developed a self-learning, closed-loop solution called ATOM, which stands for Adaptive Thermal Optimisation and Mapping. Most commercial cooling systems operate using fixed settings. Regardless of changing weather conditions, occupancy levels, or internal heat loads, chillers often continue operating at the same levels throughout the day. Commercial establishments, however, cannot afford to compromise occupant comfort. ATOM integrates seamlessly with a building’s existing infrastructure through non-intrusive software. It continuously analyses thermal conditions and automatically recalibrates system settings to reduce energy consumption while maintaining indoor comfort standards. For example, in a five-floor, 170,000-sqft retail mall with an 800 TR chiller capacity, ATOM achieved a 25 percent reduction in HVAC energy consumption while avoiding approximately $4,000 in annual maintenance costs, all while maintaining strict ASHRAE thermal comfort standards.
Why is reducing energy wastage just as important as generating clean energy?
Energy saved is effectively clean energy generated. Many organisations invest heavily in renewable energy assets such as solar installations and battery energy storage systems. However, if the building’s consumption systems remain inefficient, these renewable assets cannot deliver their full potential. Reducing energy wastage improves the baseline efficiency of the entire system. Once consumption is optimised, renewable energy assets can operate far more effectively.
A good example is a 500,000-square-foot commercial building in Tokyo where we coordinated a 125 kW rooftop solar array with a 961 kWh battery storage system. By using AI to optimise battery charge-discharge cycles based on tariff structures and demand peaks, we reduced the renewable infrastructure payback period from 19.5 years to 8.11 years while generating annual utility savings of nearly $31,913.
How does the work of your company affect everyday lives?
Residential users can consciously adjust their energy consumption habits, but commercial facilities often cannot. Even if only one occupant requires a particular temperature setting, traditional building management systems tend to operate at peak capacity throughout the day to accommodate that possibility, resulting in significant energy waste. Our technology works behind the scenes to eliminate this inefficiency.
In industrial environments, inefficiencies can lead to power disruptions and equipment failures. Through our Soul platform and its RIPE (Resilience Intelligence and Power Effectiveness) framework, we capture and monitor machine-level electrical signatures, helping facilities avoid an average of 200 hours of critical equipment downtime annually. In one precision electronics facility operating more than 20 critical machines worth up to $500,000 each, our predictive anomaly detection system prevented 15 hours of monthly downtime, reduced energy bills by 17 percent, and delivered annual savings of approximately $20,000. Importantly, all of this is achieved without collecting personal data, ensuring complete privacy protection.
If every major commercial building in Hyderabad adopted intelligent energy management systems, what visible difference would citizens notice five years from now?
The most immediate impact would be a significant reduction in stress on the regional electricity grid. During extreme summer heatwaves, simultaneous peak demand from commercial buildings places enormous pressure on grid infrastructure, often resulting in overloads, power disruptions, and blackouts. When buildings adopt adaptive AI-powered energy management systems, these demand spikes can be flattened and grid stress substantially reduced. This allows power to be utilised more efficiently and enables civic authorities to allocate resources toward long-term public welfare initiatives rather than constantly responding to grid failures. Our deployments currently save close to 200 hours of cumulative power-grid strain annually per site across localised clusters. Over time, reducing these demand spikes can help create a more resilient, reliable, and sustainable energy ecosystem for the entire city.
Written by: Machanageri DattaSai Reddy