After tasting success with its power back up devices, inverter maker Su-Kam is now planning to tap the renewable energy market. The company is looking at launching solar-powered, wind powered inverters and storage devices for domestic customers, and have planned investments to the tune of Rs 300 crore for the same.
“We are looking at acquiring a solar panel firm as well as enhance capacity of our existing plants to start manufacturing solar powered inverters,” Kunwer Sachdev, Managing Director, Su-Kam said.
The company has a war chest of Rs 100 crore for acquiring companies that are manufacturing solar panels. The company will invest another Rs 200 crore in the solar sector over the next 3 years to develop and design new products.
The privately held company, which has investors such as Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) and Temasek Holdings on board, will fund the buy through internal accruals.
However, the company is not planning to enter the power generation market.“The solar generation market is very complex and requires a lot of government intervention, we don’t want to get into that,” he added.
It had launched its first solar-powered inverter priced at Rs 24,000 last year and within six months it has already sold 4,000 units of the same in Delhi alone. “We are looking at selling 2,000-3,000 units every month,” he added.
Talking about the market opportunity, he said , “We are expecting Rs 100 crore revenues from solar this year. Next year, we are expecting Rs 300 crore from solar only.”
Su-Kam had recorded Rs 700-crore in revenues in 2011-12 and is expected to close FY 2012-13 with revenue of Rs 1200 crore.
The solar market is growing and with the price of one unit of power generated through renewable sources coming down, more people are expected to use solar-power generated inverters as backups.
As of now, the price of generation of one unit of power through solar sources is Rs 10, and the cost of generation of one unit of power generated through the generator is Rs 15.
Apart from Solar Products, Su-Kam plans to focus more on big Solar Projects both in rooftop and centralized street lighting solutions. It has already completed projects with Assam Rifles, Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency, Assam State Electricity board, to name a few.