Suzlon’s High-Tech Makeover: Vice Chairman on Using Data to Squeeze Every Electron from the Wind

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My guest for today is Girish Tanti. Girish, thank you so much for joining me today. So, you know, you've been in the wind energy space for some time, but the interesting thing is that this was a major or a final year thesis in your MBA school.

And you never got your degree at that point. So tell us about what made you first focus on a thesis around wind energy 30 years ago.

Thank you for having me today. So this started, you know, in the early 90s, I think it was 94.

And this is the time when the as a family, we were in in the textile business. And we were looking for diversification. I was doing my MBA in the UK at the time.

And, you know, one of the evenings, our founder, Mr. Tulsi Tanti, he kind of called up and he said, you know, we're looking at renewable energy. Wind seems interesting. Why don't you look at this as a area of focus?

And I was just starting my MBA thesis. So I said, why not take this up? So actually, my thesis was to set up a wind energy company in India.

And that's how the dialogue started. I did a research. We looked at several countries at the time.

Europe was, of course, at the forefront of renewable energy at the time. So we looked at Europe, UK, US. Then Tulsi bhai kind of came over to UK.

We went across all the continents, looked at all the technologies, products, other things. And finally, we kind of nailed in on Germany as our base to kickstart the wind energy technology related work. And then I came back.

I didn't get time to finish my thesis because things happened so fast. And came to India and April 95 is when we set up Suzlon Energy in Gujarat. And since it happened so fast, I did submit my thesis.

So technically, I did not get my MBA when I started Suzlon Energy. But then when we did the IPO, the university got to know about it and they were kind enough to send me an honorary degree.

So they sent you a degree because you raised money?

No, they saw that I had set up the business. It was kind of up and running and it was successful. So it was kind of them.

So at that time, there were other entrepreneurs, let's say, who wanted to get into power, but were getting into fossil fuel based plants, including energy, including Gujarat. Let's say there was SR and others who came in.

So how did you choose or you and Tulsi Tanti choose renewable energy?

So, you know, basically, we were looking to see how we can optimise the power cost. And at that point in time, conventional energy, if you see all anyone today, while the base of most of the countries is built on conventional energy, India is not that fortunate to have excellent number of resources. We are still heavily dependent on imports for our all the conventional fuel largely.

And also the, you know, for the thermal, the kind of coal content we have, it's not that great from a calorific value. So still a huge amount of import happens. And therefore, effectively, the country does not have really a grip on being able to get cost of energy under control.

And it was every year we were seeing increase in power cost, increasing power cost. And so we were trying to see and as a family, we are brothers of engineers. So it was kind of something we wanted to do where we could really get a leapfrog into the whole energy sector.

And while looking at several things, we found out that renewables was really fitting perfectly for India. As a country which required low cost energy, huge population, low resources in general, you know, compared to the population we have. And when we did our assessment, we found out that God had blessed us both with excellent wind resources and also the solar energy.

Of course, solar was not that kind of at a viable state at that time. It was too early. But wind was in those early days of getting to that viability model.

And so we said, you know, why not take this home and, you know, really put all your energy behind it, make it a viable solution and see if we can, you know, it just that everything was coming up pretty well. The major challenge was, of course, getting the economics right, making it a viable solution. And I think that was the fun part of it.

As an engineer, that was the challenge, you know, from where we started to today, effectively, if you see the cost of energy in wind, we have kind of more than halved it. So and that's been purely through technology and innovation. So I think that's been the kind of kickstart of the business.

So and at the time you started, if you were to break it by unit cost, so suppose let's say if I were to put put up a two megawatt, I don't know if that was the size at that time. It was 350 kilowatt, 350 kilowatt. Do you have you but you have two megawatt today.

Today, of course, we've gone even bigger. Yeah.

So let's say 350 kilowatt at that time. How would you break it down in terms of what you would spend in it, including importing maybe some of the components, building it, setting it up and payback.

So effectively, if you see at that point in time, in a very simplified way, if I was to say today, the cost of energy of wind ranges anywhere from about, you know, three rupees 25 paisa to about three rupees 75 paisa per unit of production. And when we started the journey, that was in excess of eight rupees, nine rupees. So that's where it was at that time.

And at the time also, this was a technology which was entirely dependent on the international market. So everything used to get imported. So, you know, there was practically nothing made in India at that time.

But then we set on ourselves that, you know, if we have to make this a viable solution, if we have to make it success for India and India by itself, be it from weather point of view, be it from the grid quality point of view, needed a lot of innovation. The wind equipment sold at that time in the world was not fit for India.

And why is that?

Because of many parameters. Firstly, the technologies largely got developed in the early days in the northern hemisphere. And these are all largely designed for cold climate conditions.

And also a different arid situation also. Whereas in India, you had a very different scenario. You know, you had, you know, the sandstorms of Rajasthan, which you had to take care of.

You had the extreme moisture of the Sahyadri hills that you may have to take care of. Or you had to take care of the salinity of the coastline that we have and…

Kanyakumari.

Kanyakumari and all those areas where we started large at that time. So all of these brought in, one was the whole climatic condition. The other was that, you know, as a country, our grid was in that early stage.

It was not a very strong grid. And you had frequent grid cut-offs, which you don't see in the northern hemisphere at that time even. So, you know, for you to be able to generate and to be able to latch on to the grid when it can trip off, is a different kind of problems that you have.

So there are several such issues. And then, of course, infrastructure was limited. And therefore, you had other challenges of moving such equipments and putting them up.

So putting all together, we had to then innovate in a way that how do we design a product. And that time at seven, eight rupees, it was not a viable solution. So the idea was, that was the other challenge, that India had one of the, you know, we had to work towards the least cost of energy as an end consumer to be able to penetrate at that time.

Even at that time, you know, coal and thermal energy and all that was at about five rupees or so. And you were kind of at eight rupees, nine rupees. And so it was a very difficult time at that time.

So we had to almost kind of design a product, which was completely taking care of the Indian nuances. And that's how we kind of, from the early days, I think the first big successful large product that we could bring to the market was in 2000. And took us about four, five years to really get the hang of the whole thing in perfection.

And that's when we launched directly a one megawatt turbine in India. And that kind of got India at part of the world in terms of product, technology, size, everything. And it was a grand success.

And that changed the whole economics of wind energy. Built a lot of confidence in the market. And I think then it just started building up thereafter.

And was that one megawatt in Rajasthan or?

So the first project that we did was in Gujarat. The company started out of Gujarat. So our first project we did was in Gujarat.

It was for IPCL at that time. The first turbine in Dhank, next to Upalita as a district. And that project now completes almost 30 years.

When we built the project, it was designed for a 20-year life. And now it's just done 30 years. It's still running perfectly fine.

So, you know, it has been kind of very interesting to see how technologies have grown.

So you're saying the turbines that you would instal in Rajasthan would be different from the ones you would instal in southern Tamil Nadu and Gujarat?

Definitely. There will be different nuances.

So where is it? I mean, I'm assuming it's the blade and the engine?

Yeah, so different things have different impact. So when you look at Rajasthan, your entire electrical systems and the control systems, you take care of 50 degrees plus, kind of being able to sustain that. Whereas when you put on the coast, the salinity becomes more important.

So, you know, making sure that all the equipments, all your electronics, electricals, everything is protected well. Also the sand, which can hit your blades and other things, you need the right protective layers to be able to take care of those. Same way in salinity, there can be deposits of salt, which can happen at different and it can start corrosion very quickly.

So you have to take care of corrosion and other things. Same way when you go to the hills, the moisture levels are very high. And that can create short circuit for you.

Some of our areas have very high thunderstorms and lightning strikes could hit. And you being the tallest tower probably in that area will be the first one to get a lightning strike. So, you know, your grounding proper and also your blades have to be kind of have to let it pass through in a correct manner from that point of view.

So a lot many different things. But as an engineer, it kind of makes it interesting to build those things.

And today Rajasthan, I mean, your highest installed capacity in India is in Rajasthan.

Yeah. So we have typically, if you were to say, then we have four states which are the large states. So Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

These are the four big states, if you may say, which has large potential, large installations. And then you have Maharashtra, MP, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Those are the other ones which kind of fall in line.

Typically, Indian wind conditions are the best on the west to south. And around eight, nine states which fall in this bucket has the largest potential to be able to generate electricity.

I am going to go a little deeper into that later. But would you say that the wind conditions that there were in 95 or 2000, when you started, are roughly the same as they are today?

On an average, if you were to plot the wind pattern over, we do a study of almost rolling 20 years. And so if you look at that, largely the wind patterns remain the same. However, you will get a few years where you could have a little higher wind, in few years a little dropping.

But on average across the lifespan, now we design turbines for almost 30 years. But on an average, you would see that whatever is the thesis that we develop it for, largely it will be on the same lines. But yeah, the patterns keep changing.

You will also see the movements, the seasons are varying. So you have different movements that you have. And you get few years where you would have a little drop, but then you have few phenomenal years also.

So on an average, I think the wind currents across the world, I mean net-net everything as an ecosystem in India, I mean in the world, it is within the atmosphere. So I think that way it wouldn't change.

And I am going to come to the international part as well. But you said that in the beginning, it was at about 8 rupees per unit and therefore not so viable.

Correct.

And you were also captive, I am assuming, in the early years more than before, more than now. And today you are under 4 rupees. So when was the tipping point and what drove that?

So I think several things came into play and it has gone through few cycles of scale-up of market. I think the first phase of the market growth that happened was largely led by the private sector in India. So the early days was by demo projects being done by government to really see if it is viable, you know, on that ground, which was the early stage in the 90s.

Then in 2000, we saw a large interesting part coming from the small and medium enterprises and few large corporates who were early on.

I remember Bajaj Auto was…

Bajaj was one of them. Even Tata Group was the other one. They were the early adopters of renewable energy.

And so it was primarily the same reason why we went into wind was something that other industrialists also looked at wind energy. Primarily to, you know, set off their power cost. And the beautiful part was that they were able to kind of get a payback in about 6-7 years.

And then the balance 13-14 years, you know, it was a very low… they could almost freeze the power cost to less than 50 paisa kind of situation because then it's just your financing cost and maintenance cost. So effectively for those industries, it became pretty interesting.

Textile industries were the early adopters in the south because Tamil Nadu was the first market which kind of became large. Then it spread over to the western part of the country and other industries and slowly large corporates came in. That was the first wave.

The second wave we got was when the further the viability is kind of… we were able to improve and we went into the megawatt size turbines. And, you know, the scale and the consolidated benefits.

And what we did was we launched a little new concept at that time called wind farms. So until then windmills were installed here and there, just ones and twos. But then we went into a farming concept.

So the first large park that we developed of that nature was in Maharashtra on the Sahyadri hills in Satara district.

Which you can see when you drive past.

Yes, on the highway when you pass, you see that. So I think that was the first one. So the benefit of that was it's like a real estate scheme that effectively whether you have one unit or five units, everyone gets collective benefits of the common infrastructure, the upkeep, maintenance, everything.

So we brought that concept of wind farming which meant a very complex engineering around the wind science and studying and, you know, kind of identifying the right locations and doing all those aspects. A lot of meteorology studies and all that. And once we did the wind farm concept, it just went to the next level.

And the last big wave we've had is after Mr. Modi took charge. And I think he has set a very bold vision for our country. And I think that clarity of vision and direction for renewables in totality, I think has just set a new pace to the whole growth.

So that's been the various phases of growth for the industry.

So I think he said 500 gigawatts of renewable by 2030, which we look like we are already set to cross before that.

Yes, so we are currently, you can say, so we had set two targets for ourselves. I mean the long term target for the country set by Prime Minister is that by 2070, we would like to become carbon neutral, get to net zero. And in the near term, next five years, so 2030 review period, is where we have set a target of 500 gigawatts, as you said, from renewable energy.

And also 50% of the total energy mix should come from non-fossil fuels. And the good thing is that we are five years away, but we have hit already the 50% goal of that. So we've just crossed about 237 gigawatts now.

And wind itself has crossed the 51 gigawatts. It's targeted to be 100 gigawatts by 2030. So we have also crossed that.

And in the total composition, if you see today our total energy consumption as a country, we are a little over 400 gigawatts of installed capacity, of which around 237 comes from renewable energy. So from a 50% mark, we are there already. But the 500 gigawatts is the next important target.

And I think with the kind of things that are happening today, both on the demand side as well as the supply side, we are largely on course to get there.

So tell us about the demand side. And particularly the last decade, where Suzlon also as a company, you've faced challenges and things are looking up again. So what's changed on the demand side, if that is one contributing factor, in the last 10 years?

And how has that been for you as a company?

So demand side, I think, there's been some fundamental changes. I think, you know, now we have, in the last decade, the market, if you were to segment, we have three segments now. You have one segment, which is the pure government segment.

So today what Indian government does, does a wholesale procurement of renewable energy. And then they kind of sell it back to the states. So they aggregated the demand from all the states and they are running bids, as we are calling it.

So that's the bidding market, which is the government kind of coming out with bids for procurement. So that's one large segment of the market. The second segment is the private sector.

I think today, India Inc. at large, has, you know, kind of, almost all companies have set a goal of getting to a net zero, from that point of view. If not, at least, reaching to a significant portion.

Even IT services companies, they are amongst your biggest customers. Amazon…

Yeah, everybody. Yeah, all of them.Amazon.

In fact, the future, if you see, I think the IT sector is going to be the largest energy guzzler. So for them, it's even more important now, going ahead. So that's the other segment where, you know, and also what has happened is, globally, with the whole ESG focus that has come, sustainability has become the core of all businesses.

So I think there is also the investor push on switching to renewable energy. And now, purely on commercials, it makes sense. So it will be just stupid for somebody not to switch to green energy, because it makes economically viable solution from whatever source of energy you are consuming today.

So that's the second segment. And the third segment that is there is the PSU segment itself. So the public sector unit, large, again, very heavy industry kind of guzzlers of energy that we have, all of them have set up their targets.

So now we have three engines firing in a big way. From a demand point of view. And I think with the current level of demand that we see, achieving that 500 gigawatts, you know, by 2030, is something from a demand point of view, we are well within the reach of that.

Also, if you see today, the projects that are announced under implementation, the advanced stage of execution, we will reach there. And if all goes well, maybe a little earlier. So that's purely on that side.

If you look on the supply side, there again, the good thing is that for wind energy, you know, on an average, we do about 6-7 gigawatts of annual installations today, and steadily increasing every year by 20-30% from there. If we see from that point of view, you know, the manufacturing setup that we have as a country, which is built over the last three decades, the total manufacturing capacity today our country has is close to about 20 gigawatts on an annual basis. So we hardly consume as a country one third of that.

So there is a good backbone availability from a manufacturing point of view. And the reason we have that large setup available is also because the world is looking for India to be their global supply chain partner. So almost whatever is consumed in India, almost 60-70% equal amount, in some years even double, equal amount, 100% is getting exported.

So we have the local market, we have the global market as a combination. And therefore the ecosystem from a supply chain, and this is not just the OEMs, but the MSMEs. So today I think the wind sector ecosystem is close to about 2,500 MSMEs spread across.

It's a very impressive kind of setup that has gotten created in the last 30 years. And again I think one beautiful part of this is that unlike, you know, there are not many sectors in our country which we can proudly say that we are, if not the best, amongst the best in the world in terms of your product, your performance, your cost efficiency, technology, everything. But in wind we are there.

So today India can proudly say that, you know, be it the best energy companies out of America, or Europe, or anywhere in the world, a company like Suzlon Products could easily kind of meet to them.

Yeah, and I'm going to come back to the financial part. But when you say more than 2,000 MSMEs, what would you say are the top three or four parts that they make and supply to you?

So if you see the key components of windmill, so one are the blades..

So that usually comes from, I'm assuming, one person?

So these are in combination, either, yeah, it would be either, so there are multiple suppliers, and there is then subsystems of blades. So there could be MSMEs in the subsystems.

And then there are integrators or, and, you know, production of blades, which will be there. So there's a whole value chain around that. And there are several other, because these are made from, No, it's a combination.

It's not, it's a FRP, and, you know, it's a lightweight. So it's not steel.

So there's no metal in it at all? It's all fibreglass.

It's all fibreglass. Now we also use balsa. It's a, we even use carbon.

Balsa wood.

Balsa wood, we also use.

But that's like going back centuries. That's the technology, yeah.

Yeah, but that makes sense. And even we use sandwich construction of carbon fibre. So it's a lot of different materials.

So the whole value chain of all those industries kind of come into that. Then we have the key other components in the main nestle or the engine, if you may call it. So there you have generators, gearbox, electrical panels, and all the electronics.

So huge amount of ancillaries that get created out of that. And traditionally, when we started, these weren't, I mean, we didn't have the technology. So in the early days, in fact, Suzlon set up three SEZs to attract global investors to come in because it was difficult for, they found it very challenging to set up businesses in India.

So we kind of, you know, set up the whole industrial estates and invited them that let's build the ecosystem just like the auto industries have their ancillaries around them. So that's how we developed one in Baroda in Gujarat, one in Coimbatore that we did, and one in Tamil Nadu. So I think different places we built three SEZs, got them coming, and slowly the, you know, traction came.

And today they are spread across, you know, all these eight, nine states.

So you talked about the three or four main. So I'm assuming the newer or the latest input is really the digitisation of all of this, which makes everything talk to each other. So when did that part start, the sort of going digital part?

So I think, you know, the interesting part for the wind energy is that it is, although it is a very complex piece of engineering which involves almost all faculties of engineering, be it aerodynamics, be it mechanical, electrical, electronics, everything is there. But the beautiful part is that almost for, since the beginning, we have been doing it with a tech-first mindset. So, you know, even in those early days, sitting in India, once we kind of set up operations even globally, we were able to have a control centre in India and be able to see the live performance of each and every product anywhere installed in the world, like a cockpit, to a level that, level one of service, digitally I could do from India itself, only when required field engineers would have had to go in any part of those geographies.

So we've had that quite built into the design. I think in the last decade, with the whole, multiple elements, one is the whole area of automation, then the area of robotics which came in, lot of IoT devices that came in, and now we are seeing the whole data science revolution. I think with that, this has made it even more interesting now.

So now we are seeing a further convergence of energy and data. So it's a new frontier that's coming into play and it's very interesting and brings in lot of interesting elements. So today if you see, if I was to talk how things have changed, then in my R&D today, at the front end, you are able to do so much of, use data for doing so much of simulations and almost creating twins before getting to that perfection on your designing.

So that's one element of data science which you use to really fine tune your core thesis of design. The second element is that when we go into the manufacturing, I think huge transformation in terms of the robotics and the way you use data across the value chain in terms of efficiency, productivity, accuracy, quality, all elements. So a lot of aspects of the larger aspects of the digital elements that have come in.

And then we are also seeing on the project execution. You know, use of drones, using a lot of, even using various elements of photography, videography for doing so many other things digitally to just purely make the workplace safe. Do, you know, speed up your efficiencies of executions of projects.

And today you are able to do a huge amount of land surveys and things digitally with drones and other things. It just maps. So much of things happening in that space.

And the other is today, you know, as a Suzlon today, almost we kind of manage assets in excess of 16 gigawatts within our country. We are almost the second largest asset managers from an energy asset point of view in our country today. And again, the data science of it is just making it beautiful in terms of your ability to really extract that last one electron from the energy.

So you are managing more assets than you own, right?

Of course.

Because O&M is a part of your business as well. So if you were to, let's say, look back 20 years and look today, what is, again, the one or two things that have changed the way you approach the setting up or the installation of a windmill, apart from the fact that it's changed the way you produce it or manufacture it.

The installation itself, what are the sort of new data inputs or the new So I think, firstly, I think now you have a lot of extra data availability for you to be able to optimise the design of a park. The other important element is that now as we look, as renewables become kind of the source of energy because it has moved from nice to have to a must to have and it is going to be the energy only, in a way, moving ahead. There's an element of integration.

So what happens is you have wind, you have solar, you have solar storage technology. All of these will come together and together you are able to provide firm energy, meaning energy on demand at any point in time. Because by nature, wind or solar they are not a continuous source of energy.

They are only there as long as the wind is there.

A lot of the AI solutions are coming out in that space.

That's correct. It's the whole energy management as we call it. So the energy management space is pretty interesting right now and therefore you are now designing your wind parks or now we call it the FDR, your hybrid parks in such a way that you don't just think about wind but you now start looking at energy as a solution.

So I think that's a fundamental change which has happened and within that also if you see the beautiful part that wind fits in into the element for India is that India has a peak energy demand in the evenings. They have a morning peak, they have a much larger evening peak. And fortunately the wind pattern of India also supports the evening peak.

So while solar doesn't support that because it's post the sunset but the wind really supports that. So fundamentally the way we are seeing going ahead while it's going to be kind of the other side of the coin wind and solar but moving forward we will see the importance of wind even getting more important because when you see the cost of energy from a consumer point of view then wind becomes the cheapest source of energy because when you want it, it is available whereas for solar you have to kind of generate it during the day then store it and then use it so there is a cost of storage which adds on then when you add that then wind becomes more viable.

Going by your own assets that are currently generating even as we speak what's the pattern like today let's say we are in the middle of monsoons right now and I am sure that changes during the year. So what's the pattern like in terms of peak, trough and how does that kind of correlate with everything, other options including solar.

So again I think if you look at so I just told earlier on the day side of the thing but if you see for the year side of things again we are lucky as a country that the wind pattern and our energy consumption pattern is almost correlated. So when the energy demand is the highest in our country during certain pre-months of monsoon and you know winter months and all that, the winds are also better. So again there is a very good correlation in terms of the wind pattern and the energy demand.

And that includes peak summer?

And peak summers also yes. So you get good winds during that time also when your AC load is high so that time even the heating load the winds are good at that time. So there is a good correlation which is coming from the weather pattern also and then when you combine wind, solar and storage, today I think with that combination India is probably able to produce energy today cheapest in the world from that point of view.

So I think we are at a much advanced stage in terms of adapting renewable energy and that too making a whole combination of wind, solar and storage and going ahead from that.

So if you can give me a unit example, so let's say Rajasthan where you are present, I mean if you were to take one town in Rajasthan which consumes let's say 400 megawatts or let's take 100 megawatts as an example, what would be the draw like during the day from all the various sources that we have discussed so far which is one is of course fossil fuel, solar storage to whatever extent it does and of course wind.

So we can look of course it will be slightly different for different parts of the country, some other state could be different but largely if you would say then effectively you will have a combination where you will see about 30-40% of wind. Now if you were to look at, let me answer this slightly differently If you were to get the cheapest course of energy for Rajasthan then what should be the combination? Because the combinations could be different depending upon the journey of where Rajasthan is today and adapting renewable energy So there the combination typically you would see that in the current state, pre kind of 50s or 60s if you may say in the current situation then you would have about 25-30% of wind equal amount of solar either one could be 5-10% higher than each other.

You would have a small component of storage maybe 5% and rest would be conventional because otherwise also today you see 50% energy of a country comes from conventional energy So that base load would continue on that the other 50% you will have a variation between wind and solar in combination and again time of the day, time of the year the combination could vary.

And this is day time?

Day time or night time again it depends on the, in general I would say whenever the consumption is there.

So for that same 100MW let's say it's post 9pm or post 11pm now so obviously solar would have dropped. Yes. So where would wind be at that time?

So that time again, wind you will still see that you would have still 10-15% of wind and then rest will have to be conventional or storage.

So you are saying is that broadly the case across the country that at any point of time wind is supplying about 15% or?

You could say that at any point in time at least minimum 10% should be coming from wind on an average.

And it's not higher than that because the capacity is limited or it's not running?

So what happens is that, ok so if I talk from a capacity point of view then just to give you some statistics today the total wind potential of our country with 50GW commission today we have just still consumed about 4% of the wind potential of the country. So you know there is still a huge quantum available in terms of land and you know the wind resource. So as that penetration increases then this percentage could be further increasing you know.

So today it is 10%. There are countries which have 40% wind also. So it's not something that can't be achieved from that point of view.

But as we adapt more into, so as the combination will increase over the years, the wind percentage and wind works as a stabiliser because it's available almost throughout the day, throughout the seasons. So it is also the stabiliser for the grid because currently we have situations sometimes in solar where at the peak in the afternoon when solar is generating such huge amount of energy we actually end up having excess energy in the system.

Yeah, yeah. Prices crash.

So they have gone to negative pricing you know. So that happens and therefore the storage comes into play to bring it to a peak period on that. But then that's an extra cost of storing the power.

So today when someone asks why wind versus solar what you are saying is really don't think about it like that but think about integrated.

So definitely I think wind has its own advantages, solar has its own advantages and today if you see world over these are the two most powerful successful commercialised technologies in the world and at least I can say for wind, India is at the cutting edge of it. So in terms of your own IPR, your own capability, your make in India all that. Like today if you see last year of the total installations that have happened in our country on an average 64% of the content is made in India.

Like in solar if you are looking at it it will be about 20% only. It's still heavily import dependent. But in wind we are already at 64%.

But like for Suzlon if you talk for us we are in many cases even 85% in some of our products. So because we have had that early journey of localisation you know and we kind of went with one of the elements of really getting the cost under control was make in India. Which right in early 2000 itself, since then on an average our local content has remained 75% plus in the last 20 years.

So and as the technologies kind of move in further deeper then we reach 85% or so.

And what's Suzlon’s share of the global wind energy market? 

So today if you see I think at India level if you look at we are at about you know close to about 30 to 35% of the market. At a global level if you were to look on a cumulative basis then I think the numbers really change significantly when you put with China and without China. So normally the industry talk without China because they themselves do equal to what the whole world does on that ground.

So at a global level we would still be you know less than 5% from that point of view but you know growing from that.

But the companies that you compete with globally you are also competing with in India. 

So India has the beautiful part of India is that it's truly open market and we've had all global players present in India over the last 30 years. Some have come and gone and come again also. So all the top brands of the world are present in India at some point in time in the last few decades and they still many of them have survived and continue to be present today.

So we have a fierce and strong competition in India and that also helps us to sharpen our edge and to be able to go globally and sell and so we have now Suzlan wind turbines run in almost 17 countries across the world close to about 5 gigawatts.

Including in the US?

In the US also, yes. So in fact our largest fleet outside India is in the US close to about 2.5 gigawatts. So we had you know almost in 15 states we have installed wind turbines in the US.

We have strong presence in Australia. We have strong presence in some of the southern and eastern European countries. Also we were first to instal some of the first wind turbines in some of the African countries.

So India has, I mean Suzlon has not only opened Indian market but done some good projects.

Like in the US or in Australia are you still involved in the O&M operations right now? 

So we continue to take care of all the assets that we have installed globally and we continue it's in different arrangements in different parts of the world, different business models but the beautiful part is today I think I can happily say that you know all the 21 gigawatts plus that we have installed globally you know customers are happy from that.

But you have had some problems in blades and things like that including in the US sometime ago. So what were the lessons from that?

I think, or rather what went wrong? So there I think I will answer that in two parts. So firstly let me say that you know if I were to look at in the last 30 years how many of us globally have survived who have global presence?

It's probably five of us only. So it's a tough market to be in. You are dealing with high value product with a long term 30 year commitment of performance and operations.

So you know in case you make any mistake at any point in time it can hurt you very strong. But I think what's important is do you have the conviction, ability to kind of stand up to your commitment and make it happen? So you know things would have happened to us in those early days.

Lessons learned from that is basically you know you just need to sharpen your edge further.

Was it a materials challenge or?

I think it was purely in terms of you know you kind of, it's a learning curve of technology development I would say because this is something that has happened to all my global pre-assets. It's just that we know about Suzlon but be the best of the companies in the top ten everybody has gone through those cycles. So it's purely engineering learning curve.

Just like you see in some of the cars some of them have to be recalled, they have to be fixed. It's something from that point of view. But I think touch wood I think it's now almost 20 years plus since those incidents and since then in last two decades we have not had any such technology issues.

So we were lucky to learn it earlier in the curve and you know be more cautious and develop strong technologies thereafter. So last 20 years no issues.

Many people may not know what's happened in Suzlon particularly in the last few years. So you've had a rebound. I mean things were down, you had to raise debt, you had to do a lot of financial restructuring engineering and come back.

So I mean very quickly if you were to explain to people what happened in that period and then to the point now that you've come out of it. Could you tell us?

So I think in summary, of course there's so much told about this so I'll not go into too many details. But just to tell you in summary I think as we all know we had a situation with regards to our debt largely on account of us not being able to you know integrate our acquisition that we had done in Germany. So we had a situation where we had a pot of cash lying in our international subsidiaries but we could not use it for repaying the debt in India.

Again these are all you know over the years you learn from MND and geopolitics what you can do, can't do and how you must do. So that was an element about that but effectively we had that tough situation of having to service our loan over here. And what we did three years back is basically once we had a rebound in the market and we started building up because inherently Suzlon as a company, its product, its customers its vendor supply, everything was already positive.

I think debt was the only one which was holding us back and I think we got that window of opportunity to really clean up our books completely and we had a strong demand, very successful product that could get into the market, build our order book, market appreciated it. We were able to raise new capital. So we took a conscious call not in the best interest of the family but in the best interest of Suzlon we had to dilute further to make sure that you know we raised the capital which was required for the business.

We took those decisions and you know since last three years we had debt free enterprise and closing last quarter I think close to 1500 crores plus of net cash. So you know I think that was our main area of fixing the balance sheet and once that was done I think you know from a product, from a service, from a track record it was all there. So rest was just scaling up and getting there.

Of course we went through a setback that we lost our founder in that journey transition at that point in time. So that was a big blow you know at a time when we were just kind of you know a good part of the hard work was done already by Tulsi Bhai. We were reaching that stage of you know getting the company up and again.

So there was that early stage of you know acceptance by the market that you know company would kind of stand up the storm post us losing our founder and I think we got extreme huge support from all my stakeholders in making that transition and I think today we sit in a very strong order book with a strong management team and great business prospect.

But how was that for you that process? I mean he went early I mean I have interviewed him in my earlier TV days So one is what the market thinks, knows etc. But what was it like internally?

So I think it was so I remember the day when we got the sad news. I think this was just a day before we were opening our you know fundraise. So it was already announced and the next day it was to kind of hit the market and this is the evening before this happened.

In fact he was just coming back from the road show. His last interaction in Ahmedabad and flew back to Pune on the way to home. He had the heart attack.

I think for us for all Suzlonians and of course for the family also it was I mean it was catastrophic from that point of view because he was the face. He was both and not just for Suzlonian, I think for industry also and not just for wind but for the entire renewable energy because he is fondly known as the renewable energy wind man of the country and also got lot of climate awards also globally. So he had outgrown that way Suzlanian and was more as a country man that he was doing.

So it was a huge blow across for everyone but more importantly immediately for us was that there was an issue tomorrow and we had to take a decision so that we had that discussion with the management team and said now what must we do and sir was the face of the organisation at that time so we kind of got together and asked them that if Tulsi Bhai went through something like this, what would he do? He said he'll go on. I said that's the answer, let's go on but the market may not be ready to there's lot of unanswered questions in this all of a sudden situation.

So we said we immediately planned three days road show so I didn't get much time to be with the family at that time and we went met all the investors, 50% of them bought the story 50% were sceptic and I think few hours before the issue closure, team wasn't confident that we will hit the 100% kind of fundraise but we closed at 1.8 times and I think that gave us huge amount of confidence and I think one important thing happened at that time I think the first call I made when we decided to go ahead was to Mr. Sanghvi because he was my largest shareholder Dilip Sanghvi sir and I talked to him, I said sir how do you see it, would you be participating with us going ahead he said me what's the plan all that, I explained him he said yeah, we'll do it. So I said sir please tomorrow morning if you can make an announcement that you support the family so I think he was very gracious and kind enough to do that and I think that also helped and I think then you know once things were positive then of course we quickly kind of got a good success we still had debt on our books at that time after the fundraise but the kind of reception we got from the investor community, we quickly took a call that we'll do one more round and just clear the debt so that's how we finished that

So if I were to come to the present financially things are looking better but there's an interesting twist that has happened in the market which is that ESG was a big thing till Donald Trump came back and now everyone is maybe adjusting a little bit, so how does that affect things?

See I think we've had these stages of global, yeah you know we've had that at many times we've had situations where different governments have taken different viewpoints on climate change and therefore the commitment to renewable energy but I think today renewable energy has reached both wind and solar as mature technologies, they've reached at such a stage that there's no stopping by anybody because purely the consumers will decide end of the day what makes sense, what is viable whatever you put it you know net net when you look at everything you will compare your cost of energy from X source to Y source to Z source and today wind and solar are the cheapest source of energy for anybody in the world so I think we will have some blips here and there but the decarbonisation journey of the world is set and it will happen it's just that it may get delayed in some parts of the geography but not the others but some may move faster also you know India is moving at a very rapid pace so I think overall it will balance out so I don't see that as much of a concern for the industry of course with a country like America announcing anything otherwise it kind of changes the sentiment everywhere but ultimately the pure economics will win and I think there is a huge amount of credibility wind and solar has now and I think that's unstoppable

And if you were to look ahead now, we've talked about the figures we've said 500 gigawatt target and this is how things are moving and all that but what's your sense for wind given everything else so one is, we touched upon whether or not wind patterns are shifting and whether that's a concern the other concerns I'm assuming are a windmill is a physical thing which is standing up in the air there could be a cyclone, there could be more cyclones and there are more cyclones now, the intensity is increasing so there are those kinds of risks which are different from other kinds of risks so given all that, how are you looking, what's the outlook like is there any change?

So I think overall as a product technology if we see wind, because it's been around for almost 50 years and the kind of maturity it has got in the last 30 years it's reached a stage where all those things are factored in now when we design our turbines you factor in the full life cycle to a level that the tests that we do we do the full life cycle tests so we would almost make the blade behave as if it has behaved for 30 years to a level that will break it also so those kind of ultimate tests, there's a lot of complex technology and testing that we do behind the whole thing that for very ahead of the time you would know whether you should instal a product project in this area or not and once a project is installed in a particular area it is unlikely that it will not sustain a cyclone also if that is what has happened but if there's huge weather pattern changes and something that has never happened in 100 years happens in some area, then anything that comes in its way will go away, but otherwise I think all those weather patterns, and we now use a lot of sophisticated data points with the whole global data system that's available now, you are able to do much more micro level, again the data science comes into play very heavily, so you really know where to put where not to put and what kind of technologies and even within turbines you have different classes of turbines so while we spoke about the different conditionalities, you would have a class 1 turbine class 2 turbine, class 3 turbines hot climate condition turbine, cold climate it's not that if I put a product say in Canada or in the Northern America anywhere, it's not the same turbine that I put here you would have snow, you will have icing, you will have different situations over there, so it's a very different different climate, so I think the industry has matured in a significant way, so it's just like the auto industry, you go through those cycles of changes so I think it's a very matured industry now, those risks don't exist.

So maybe a retrospective question, so Suzlon has largely been committed to wind, whereas any contemporary of yours or even older would have typically diversified into more areas of energy, so why is it that Suzlon has stuck to this, it's a good thing maybe, but why?

No yeah, it's nice, so you know I think the only other because by heart as an enterprise you are into the green space, so only if something else was of that nature you would take, so the only other industry that came by was solar you know which was equally good

And you are saying that now it's integrated

Yes it is integrated but the only issue that why it didn't excite us that much was it does not have complex engineering piece, it's a commodity and there's not a big role play for me to do in that in terms of really handling complex technology, whereas in wind even today there is you know world over we are still handful of companies who have that ability to produce excellence through wind technology, so I think it's also the pure from an engineering point of view and your ability point of view of innovation and what you can do and you know it's not everything you need to do anyways but we are seeing it differently now from a solutions enterprise point of view that while we may not be producing all those but from an end consumer point of view I would end up providing an energy solution which plugs in solar, storage wind everything, so that to the end consumer it's a full package solution so on the solution side we are looking at that, that's what we do it but we may not end up manufacturing everything

So you are saying that you will go and tie up with a solar

solution enterprise, so we would be moving from a pure wind to from a wind OEM to a RE energy solutions enterprise, so that's where the shift will happen

So to the consumer it's only one solution or one pipe that's coming in, ok last question, so if you were to write a paper today assuming if you were back in MBA school what would your subject be whether it's in energy or outside

That's interesting, I never thought of that but I think how do I speed up net zero for the world that should be the focus I think and that would be while still world is looking at it to happen in the 70's and may be end of the century, why not earlier because the pure advantage of doing so are just unbelievable.

So when you say why not you also obviously have some answer to it already, you feel that it can be done

Yes it can be done, I think if you were to ask me what is that one thing if we do then it can happen, it's purely leadership, I think if any country or any leader believes that they want to make it happen we have everything what it takes to make it happen today so you have the technology, you have the supply chain, you have the capability of human resource, it's just conviction do you want to make it happen countries like India are moving fast because of that conviction and if you have that as a unanimous decision across the world that we want to go green and we want to do it quickly then it will happen, so speed up net zero

That's a good point to end on, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you