KEC International, an infrastructure Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) major and a part of RPG Enterprises, is planning to take its solar business outside India and is eyeing Middle East and South-East Asian markets, Vimal Kejriwal, MD and CEO, told BusinessLine.
“Solar is not yet a big business for us, it is hardly 3 per cent of our revenue. But that’s more or less India, now we are focusing on international (markets) – Middle East, Africa, South-East Asia, including Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,” Kejriwal said.
Going global
He added that KEC, as a part of diversified RPG group, has an advantage of using structures for solar panels as well as cables and transformers manufactured within the group. “We have a fully integrated supply chain with us – (we manufacture) around 70-80 per cent of equipment required for setting up a solar plant, minus the PV modules. It gives me a significant advantage, if not in the cost but in the schedules because all these plants are required “yesterday”,” Kejriwal said.
KEC’s installed solar capacity is over 300 MW currently, all of which is in India. “From next year, you will start seeing solar international projects in our portfolio,” Kejriwal said.
While 50 per cent of company’s revenue currently comes from international orders as company is present in more than 30 countries, all of the projects are in transmission and distribution space. Going ahead, the company may also consider participating in railway-related tenders in the global markets.
Smart cities
In India, while KEC will continue to focus on the two key areas for the company — transmission and distribution and railways — the company has ventured into smart infrastructure space where it sees “decent ordering activity,” Kejriwal said. “We have just launched smart infra vertical basically to deal with smart cities. There are some cities where a lot of work is happening, whether they are there in the list of 100 (smart cities) or not,” Kejriwal said.
In Mumbai, for example, many projects in traffic management and control and command have been going on, he added.
“It is happening in pockets, it is not like one city has done everything. A lot of work is happening on communications side. There are cities that are trying to build new hospitals, drainage systems, there are new towns which are coming on Delhi-Mumbai DMIC corridor so there are tenders that have been floated for smart works,” Kejriwal said.
According to him, KEC international have bid for projects in communications, command and control, traffic management space. “We are L1 in a large communications tender, lets see if it gets awarded before elections,” he noted.
Strong order book
Kejriwal added that the company’s order book is at a record high of ₹20,592 crore at the end of third quarter, a 20 per cent year-on-year growth with T&D business accounting for the largest chunk at ₹15,000 crore.
Despite the company downplaying its annual growth guidance from 15 per cent to 12.5-15 per cent for FY19, it expects a revenue growth of 15-20 per cent in the next financial year on the back of strong order book.