Projects that are too competitive will be turned down: Enrique Pedrosa, Onshore Chief Regions Officer, Siemens Gamesa
The Indian wind industry moved from the feed-in-tariff system to the auction regime three years ago.
BENGALURU: Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa is adapting to changes in the Indian wind industry by changing its own style of working.
“It’s natural that there will be changes in India. From 2017-18 onwards, the Indian market has been completely different from what it was in the previous phase,” said Enrique Pedrosa, Onshore Chief Regions Officer, in an interview with ET.
The Indian wind industry moved from the feed-in-tariff system to the auction regime three years ago. Prior to 2017, wind tariffs were set by state power regulatory commissions depending on wind speed in each state. The wind industry went through a lull during this transition. Very few auctions were held in 2017, because of which wind turbine manufacturers got few orders and their business suffered.
“It’s a much more competitive, sophisticated, mature market now. There is more focus on execution, and less on growth. It’s a different profile — less of entrepreneurship and much more into a rigorous management profile, so we’ve made our changes too,” Pedrosa said.
There have been leadership changes at the top management level within the company. In June, Markus Tacke stepped down as chief executive of Siemens Gamesa in Spain while Ramesh Kymal who headed their operations in India also resigned earlier this year.
Pedrosa said that if the company finds tariffs for particular projects too competitive, it will turn down providing infrastructure for such projects.
“It’s natural we say no to certain projects which we cannot afford the competitiveness (of). If we find some other markets in the world where we can export from India or from elsewhere, we will do so. That’s simply business as usual,” he said.
Siemens Gamesa recently launched a 3MW turbine which is specifically designed to cater to Indian wind speeds, the company’s press release said.
“We are eager to present our new wind turbine, it’s one we believe will accomplish the short-term challenges in India which mainly relate to profitability,” he said. “Now with the launch of the new turbine, we believe we are in a much better position than with the 2.2MW turbine (the earlier version). Many of the projects that were not competitive for us in the past will be so in the future with this new turbine.”
Siemens Gamesa is adapting to a new normal because of the Covid-19 outbreak, its new India CEO, Navin Dewaji said. “Productivity was hit. Our factories were shut for three or four weeks, logistics took a hit because inter-state movement was not allowed. We are moving to a lower productivity normal,” he said.
Source: energy.economictimes.indiatimes
