Suzlon Group on Wednesday unveiled its five-year “Suzlon 2.0” roadmap, outlining plans to invest ₹2,500 crore by FY31 to expand annual renewable energy equipment sales four-fold to 10 GW, establish a 4 GW battery energy storage system (BESS) manufacturing facility in India, and build a 3 GW export business.
The company expects its order book to nearly triple from the current 5.5 GW to 15 GW by FY31, while scaling up its operations and maintenance portfolio from about 15 GW of assets under management (AUM) to 70 GW. Suzlon is also targeting a 40 per cent share of the domestic wind market – from the current 33 per cent– over the next five years.
“Today, we are primarily a wind energy player. As we grow, we will be able to supply wind, solar and storage and we will also add a layer of energy management systems, which will be the intelligent layer both from a hardware and software point of view,” Girish Tanti, Executive Vice Chairman, Suzlon Group, said during an interaction held in Mumbai.
Ajay Kapur, Group CEO, Suzlon Group, said the company is embarking on a five-year growth journey that will significantly expand its scale across businesses. “With Suzlon 2.0, we are taking off on a five-year ambition. We are currently sitting on 5.5 GW of orders. By FY31, this order book is expected to grow to 15 GW of renewable energy orders. This is a three-times growth from where we are today,” Kapur said.
Annual sales are expected to rise from about 2.5 GW currently to 10 GW by FY31, with wind continuing to account for around 70 per cent of the portfolio. Additionally, the company is targeting 3 GW of export orders and plans to strengthen its presence in international markets, where it is already present.
RE umbrella
At the heart of Suzlon 2.0 is the company’s transition from a pure-play wind turbine manufacturer to a broader renewable energy platform spanning project development, equipment manufacturing, energy management systems, storage integration and asset management. “Today, we laying the foundation for moving from a pure-wind play to a renewables play and from a pure equipment supplier to a whole value-chain play across the renewable value chain,” Tanti said.
The company plans to expand into firm and dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE) projects, which combine wind, solar and storage to provide reliable clean power. Suzlon believes its existing wind project pipeline gives it a natural advantage in building such projects. “We are doing wind development today; we will move it to renewable energy development. Good news is that most of the wind sites have the potential to be converted into FDRE. Solar sites cannot get converted, but almost all wind sites can be converted to FDRE. Suzlon has 2.0 GW of bandwidth in wind projects which we are moving to FDRE,” Tanti said.
However, the company does not plan to enter solar manufacturing and will instead adopt an asset-light model by partnering with existing manufacturers. “As far as solar is concerned, it is an asset-light model. We have not planned for a manufacturing plant. We will be leveraging the manufacturing base of other solar players and working as partners with them and give them assured demand that is expected to come and we will work together to incubate those projects and build scale for them,” Tanti said.
Battery storage, however, will see direct investments from the company. “As far as BESS is concerned, we will start with an assembly system. It will be about ₹200 crore of investment initially,” Tanti said, adding that the facility could eventually scale up to 4 GW.
The broader ₹2,500-crore investment plan will be spread over five years, with Suzlon spending around ₹500 crore annually to build capabilities across storage, technology platforms, services and international operations. The company is also developing energy management systems that can integrate wind, solar and storage assets. Tanti said Suzlon is currently conducting field trials of its hybrid controller platform, which allows customers to integrate multiple renewable energy sources and storage systems through a common energy management layer.
Business abroad
International expansion forms another key pillar of the strategy. Suzlon plans to leverage its experience managing 6 GW of overseas operating assets to grow in Europe, Australia and South America. “We have 6 GW of operating assets across the world which we had sold in our previous avatar. We also take care of those assets. We are using that experience, knowledge and relationships to grow our international business,” Tanti said.
“Our first focus is our European business, which we announced a few months back. In addition to that, Australia and South American markets are also important. These are the markets where we have already done work before. We have close to 1 GW of operating assets in most of these markets.”
The company also plans to expand its annuity-based services business by broadening it into an FDRE asset management platform supported by technology and digital solutions. “We will go global in select markets. This will make Suzlon very unique,” Tanti added.
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