Suzlon Energy’s growth strategy — ‘Suzlon 2.0’ — envisions quadrupling renewable energy sales to 10 GW and expanding renewable energy assets to 70 GW by FY31. Vice-chairman Girish Tanti tells Raghavendra Kamath the company is looking to boost international sales. Excerpts:
How do you read the shift to green energy?
The switch to green energy is taking place across the private sector and PSUs. We have 70-80% visibility on non-fossil fuel projects for 500 MW to be set up by 2030.
Globally, solar capacity is expected to grow to almost 8x from current levels by 2050 while in India, it will grow by about 15-16x. Wind energy capacity too is expected to grow globally by about 4-5x and about 10x in India. Battery capacity is expected to increase by 12-13x globally.
How is the company gearing up to tap this opportunity?
We already have a strong supply chain and are a one-stop shop for wind energy today across technology, manufacturing projects and on the service side. We are converting this platform into a wind-solar battery storage platform. Around 70% of the revenues will come from the growth in the wind business while the remaining 30% will come from the additional peripheral integrated businesses.
Players like Gold Wind ad Vestas have evolved from being OEMs to EPC players, turnkey solution providers and finally to solution providers. Are you moving in this direction?
We are already doing this in the wind energy space. We already provide technology, we manufacture and do EPC contracts and offer services. We will do this in the solar and battery spaces also. That will be the differentiator between us and the global players.
Could you elaborate on how Europe and exports will be growth engines?
Today, we have almost 6 GW of installations of Suzlon turbines outside India in about 17 countries. They have been running now almost for over 20 years. We are getting good traction with new technologies that we launched a few months back in Europe, Australia and some South American countries. This way, we are hoping to step up our sales in international markets again.
In a post-war scenario, do you expect big opportunities in West Asia?
Thanks to energy security concerns nations in most geographies are looking to become self-sufficient in energy. Therefore, demand for renewable energy is picking up in most countries, wherever it’s a viable solution. In Asia too, we see the market picking up. We have some service contracts and the idea would be to sell more turbines.
