Chennai-based energy solutions company SWELECT Energy Systems plans to invest in a slew backward integrations in Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) such as manufacturing power electronics as it plans to take its share in the BESS 10-15% in the next five years.
The initial investment in the power electronics manufacturing would be nearly $20 million. Currently, most of the products starting from battery are sourced from China. Arulkumar Shanmugasundaram, MD & CEO of SWELECT, said, “We are planning to invest in manufacturing power electronics in India in our Salem factory. However, this exploration in new technology is at early stage.” Power electronics is bidirectional power conversion between DC batteries and the AC grid. He added that the company is also exploring options to manufacture wafers, which is also an investment in backward integration in solar cell production, in India.
Shanmugasundaram also said that the company is also aggressively expanding the setting up of solar panels across north Indian markets under the PM Surya Ghar scheme as it has opened sales office and warehouses in UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi-NCR, among other states. “As these states have high incidents of load shedding, we see good opportunity for growth in the states. Solar panels and hybrid invertor solar could see a good demand in these regions. Though the growth in sale of solar panels is insignificant, we have rise in enquires from these states. The revenue conversation is very less for now, but our aim to attain an income of `1-2 crore every month.”
He also rued that the free power scheme in various states has dampened the growth of establishing solar panels across the country. “Most of the states offer free power up to 200 units. This is impacted the sale of solar panels to a certain extent. In individual houses, the power consumption goes up to 400 units only in summers. Now, with free power up to 200 units, the demand for solar panels has somewhere dropped.”
