Mahindra Powerol, a subsidiary of Mahindra and Mahindra, is a manufacturer of diesel generating sets for a diverse cross-section of industries including telecom, banks, building and construction, public sector units, hospitals, hotels and manufacturing units amongst others. With its various offerings, the company aims to become the market leader in off-grid power solutions with a significant market presence. P. Palaniappan, Senior VP and Business Head, Powerol, Mahindra and Mahindra talks about the energy needs of the telecom tower industry and its plans to turn these into growth opportunities..
How has been the journey of Mahindra Powerol so far? What are the company?s focus areas?
During the time of our inception in 2002, the mobile telephony in India was getting accepted among the masses and the mobile telecom operators were setting up the network for offering country-wide access. Given the prevailing power supply situation in the country, the DG set was used for providing back-up for the telecom tower. For providing country-wide access a vast network of Towers was being set up. The telecom companies were looking for a partner who could take ?end-to-end? responsibility of supplying the DG set, transporting it to site, installing and commissioning it and provide service throughout life of the DG set. That is the time when evolution of Mahindra Powerol business happened.
Today, we are Rs 10 billion business and have grown since our inception. Three major strengths that have contributed to our phenomenal success are fuel efficiency of our DG sets, agility in our approach and geographical coverage.
Mahindra Powerol established itself as a reliable partner for various telecom companies initially supplying DG sets to power telecom sites. A good product invariably needs a good service support, keeping this in perspective; we created a network of about 160 service dealers called MAGIECs (Mahindra Authorised Genset and Industrial Engine Centres) which catered to 24×7 service needs of our customers. As a proof of our leadership in this segment, half of the telecom towers are being powered by Mahindra Powerol Gensets. We have won several awards from our customers as evidence to our customer centric approach.
The very basic formation of Powerol?s business is planked on converting adversities into opportunities. Whenever Powerol was challenged with an adversity in the external environment, Powerol has converted into an opportunity to serve the customer using a customer centric approach. The growth of Powerol business is manifestation of many such endeavours.
The perfect example of adversities to opportunities can be sited when we have diversified into TIM (telecom Infrastructure Management) ? through this vertical we take care of all passive telecom infrastructure at telecom site. We created teams for maintenance of all brands of DG sets, battery banks, SMPS, PIU, AC etc. and continue to skill these teams through various engagement programs and uploading training videos on you tube etc. Natural progression was to offer fixed cost model to our customers coupled with a committed uptime to further establish our commitment and thus we launched ?Energy management Solutions?.
Despite the growth in telecom industry, Mahindra Powerol?s overall revenues grew and despite increasing competition in DG segment, we grew both in market share and revenues.
Last five years have been most memorable, leading Powerol from a product supplier to solution provider, remaining customer focusedand exploring new avenues to increase revenues etc. Our efforts have not gone unnoticed and we have been recognised by Frost and Sullivan for ?Voice of Customer? award from the most preferred telecom brand in India. We have also been awarded for our Innovations by Indus towers ? India?s leading tower company and our major customer. Apart from that Powerol is the first and only power backup solution provider which received the prestigious Deming Prize 2014, Japan for Total Quality Management.
Our vision is to become the market leader in off grid power solution with significance market presence.
How have the energy management requirements of telecom industry evolved in past few years?
Non-availability and erratic availability of grid power has increased dependence on diesel for tower companies, thereby increasing energy costs. Thus, there is an immediate need to offer products / services to arrest rising energy costs. There is no universal solution for this which can be applied to all sites, however solution has to be designed for cluster of sites to simplify deployment of technology and harness maximum benefits.
We first started offering telecom site O&M services for improving overall management of sites and bring operational efficiency. By using learnings at these sites and harnessing technical strength of our group companies we started offering green energy solutions like solar. The future trend in telecom will be focused on green Energy solutions. Besides this Tower Cos. will be focusing on improving energy efficiency of tower infrastructure equipment and active equipment manufacturers are bringing in Low wattage BTS that will reduce load at site. In a nutshell, our focus is on reducing the consumption part by decreasing load and also supplement energy supply using green sources and improving efficiency of the equipment. These all initiatives will be able to reduce rising energy costs. Each tower company is focusing on the same in some way and we are working as a catalyst for the same.
We can say that energy management needs of these companies has matured over a period of last few years ? from somehow fulfilling energy needs at any cost at the beginning of telecom network rollout to usage of most appropriate technology with focus on reducing or optimising energy costs.
What opportunities do you foresee in the area of energy management at telecom tower sites in the next few years? How is Mahindra Powerol planning to leverage these?
Energy management solutions will gain more credence and pursued with new vision from here onwards. The focus will be on renewable energy and energy storage technologies and it will be further vindicated by more R&D also coming in these areas as is being seen from the government priority areas.
Mahindra group is a conglomerate of highly diversified businesses and we will be leveraging strengths of our group companies and R&D to ensure that we are at forefront of technology.
We have developed Solar solution in house with our group company for telecom tower and deployed the same at almost 700 plus telecom sites and it is functioning well.
Similarly, we are in the process of developing Li Ion battery for usage at telecom towers. Energy storage has played and will continue to play a crucial role in Tele Infra space. New technologies like deep discharge fast charging Lithium Ion batteries or any other chemistry will gain popularity. However these have to pass through stringent requirements of telecom industry. In pipeline are gensets running on bio gas and standalone fuel cells.
How has been the uptake of green energy solutions in the Indian telecom market? What renewable energy solutions does the company offer to the telecom infrastructure service providers?
As of date, only viable and deployable green energy solution is solar solution for telecom sites and we have deployed the same. We are in the process of developing gensets running on Bio gas and shall be offered after completion of trials and feasibility study.
Mahindra Powerol has developed and installed- electronic fuel saving system ? eFSS; that has been fitted on existing DG sets. Though it is not a green solution but it offers carbon reduction by reducing diesel consumption at a minimal cost.
What are your growth and investment plans in 2015?
Fortunately we are part of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., the flagship of Mahindra Group and we have access to advance technologies not only for engines but for newer technologies like gas, lithium ion batteries etc. Our Mahindra Research Valley at Chennai will be our source for new technology developments in this area too.
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