Chitra’s career in the off-grid renewables sector spans over 18 years, with demonstrable strength in project management of donor driven programmes. Her work with national and international agencies, has focused on the deployment of renewables (RE) in rural and remote communities as a response to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while in tandem address the alarming rise of climate impacts on such vulnerable communities. She began her career in sustainable energy and climate change mitigation, with a research background from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in  Golden, Colorado. Other RE technologies she is conversant with are biomass-based gasifiers, biogas, wind, micro-hydro and solar thermal (incl. concentrators) where in promoting the deployment of these renewable technologies (RETs) she has been working across the key pillars of policy, regulatory, finance and technology that drive its uptake.

During her tenure at UNDP, she has supported climate change mitigation projects funded by Global Environment Facility (GEF), with the primary objective of off-grid RE solutions to serve in extending energy access to unserved rural communities (domestic and essential public services), and help replace fossil fuel use in provision of electrical and thermal heat for rural productive loads and Small & Medium Enterprises (SME). She has led country level study assignments, working with The International Renewable Agency (IRENA), to help accelerate deployment of mini-grids [Philippines, ECOWAS countries] and energy gap assessments in sectors of health and agri-food value chains. Prime objectives were to provide policy guidance in long term energy planning and programmatic-level support that enables energy security and achieves energy transition towards net zero carbon through off-grid and decentralised RE (DRE) based solutions [Nepal, South Tome & Principe, East & West Africa].

Given the importance of strategic partnerships at all levels, she is adept in engaging with government counterparts, relevant regional & global entities and grass roots level enterprises. She has worked with ministries and associated Departments of Energy (central & state) of India, Philippines, Nepal, African states (East & West), and few pacific islands under Small Islands Developing States (SIDs).

She has designed and led data driven, analytical studies using survey methods, findings from case studies and field practitioners inputs. The focus was on business model studies that led to develop a guiding framework of success elements for DRE projects to extend electricity access to hardest to reach communities; others where viable DRE solutions provide reliable power and mitigate the dependence on diesel for small holder & sustenance farmers, and to power rural, remote health clinics.

Studying approaches to scale up energy finance, she has supported studies on employing a wide variety of fiscal instruments – fiscal policies for promoting solar PV in Cambodia, green finance to promote energy efficient off-grid solar irrigation pumps at commercial scale, blended finance and strategies of public financing for DRE projects in the context of remote communities.

Working with technical partners, she has led projects in the assessments of  capacity building needs – entrepreneurship skills for RE mini-grids operations in rural context, country-level capacity building programs for mini-grid deployment in the ECOWAS countries (West Africa), content development of an operations manual for biomass gasifiers, and training modules for technicians implementing solar concentrators.

Supporting knowledge transfer and platforms for cross learning, she has coordinated  team efforts to conduct national and international conferences that includes health-energy nexus workshops with WHO, annual CLEAN networks summit of off-grid practitioners in India, UNDP-GEF project stakeholder gatherings, and IRENA’s flagship, International Off-grid Renewable Energy Conference (IOREC).

As a researcher, she stays abreast on emerging RE technologies; innovative and disruptive models of electricity provision in extending energy access.

She has a master’s degree in Physics from University of Toledo, Ohio with research in thin film solar cells at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Colorado, USA. She has undergone a solar PV & solar water heater systems installer’s training by Solar Institute, Julich. She has earned certifications in Climate and Renewable Energy Finance by Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and in “Regulation for Universal Access” from the Florence School of Regulation (FSR).

Outside work, there are a variety of interests that she pursue. Key amongst these is her training as a vocalist in Indian classical music. She enjoy reading, and spending time outdoors, going on bird watching treks.