Specialist
Former Director at Vestas Wind Technology India
Agenda
- Suzlon top line and market share outlook
- Operations and maintenance (O&M) business threats and opportunities
- 2019 performance outlook
Questions
1.
How do you position Suzlon within India’s wind OEM market, and how do we assess how it has come to be where it is today?
2.
Could you explain why the brand perception is good and how its 35% share of the installed base has evolved over time?
3.
Who does Suzlon compete with most directly? Is it competing against the international OEMs or more against local players like Inox?
4.
How would you compare the product quality of Suzlon two-megawatt turbines versus Vestas and Gamesa, the international players, versus the local players, Inox and ReGen?
5.
Suzlon PLFs currently sit at around 34-35%. Is it correct that Vestas and Gamesa’s turbines are approximately 2-2.5% better in terms of PLFs?
6.
How has Suzlon’s strategy evolved over the past few years?
7.
Given the shifting strategy and after the introduction of the auction regime, what’s currently driving the performance issues at Suzlon?
8.
What’s the main difference between a Vestas and Suzlon facility?
9.
As you mentioned, the market has seen some pressure after the move towards the auction regime, but what is your view of wind capacity growth in India over the next one or two years?
10.
I’m trying to understand how easy it would be for Suzlon to build out its turbine order book. What’s your outlook on Suzlon’s ability to win turbine tenders? How many gigawatts could it theoretically win this year?
11.
What do the customers think about signing contracts with the company considering the financial difficulties? Are customers less willing to sign contracts for the O&M business because of the issues?
12.
Concerning the business that Suzlon is able to win, could you give us a feel for pricing? What could happen with turbine pricing or average selling prices?
13.
What’s been happening with turbine prices? Have they been coming up or going down over the past few years, or what are the trends?
14.
Do you think that Suzlon has pricing power?
15.
At the start of the Interview, you mentioned that Suzlon’s had a good brand, and that it currently has around 35% share of the installed base. What’s your outlook on market share considering what’s been happening in the SECI auctions and in the market as a whole?
16.
Can you talk more about the entry of Senvion, and how that’s impacting the market?
17.
Over the next few years, who will Senvion take the most share from? Will it be from Suzlon or from other players in the market?
18.
What is your view of the strength of Suzlon’s existing order book? Are there risks of cancellations in orders or does that not really happen?
19.
Can you discuss IPP or customer behaviour relating to those that usually order with Suzlon? Do customers switch often from turbine to turbine, or are customers loyal when launching new projects? For example, will ReNew Power always go for Suzlon turbines?
20.
How do you think Suzlon prices itself in terms of its O&M business? Is it a lower-cost provider compared to other players?
21.
Suzlon’s O&M service has approximately 85-90% share of its installed base. Has it been losing share? Are the new players in the market – ISPs – taking share away from Suzlon?
22.
What is your view of the quality of Suzlon’s O&M business?
23.
Does Suzlon have any challenges associated to spare parts contracts with IPPs? How do those work?
24.
What’s your outlook on the growth opportunity for the O&M business for Suzlon?
25.
There’s a potential deal with Vestas in the market today. Why is Suzlon a potentially interesting business for an international OEM to acquire?
26.
From your perspective, does it make more sense to buy Suzlon as a business as a whole or split it up between the turbine OEM business and the O&M business?
27.
Why wouldn’t Siemens Gamesa try to buy Suzlon?
28.
What other potential opportunities are there for consolidation of the market? Do you think other players might buy Inox or ReGen? How do you look at it from that perspective?
29.
How many players will dominate India’s wind OEM market in the long term?
30.
Can you give us a sense of the accounting principles behind supply and installation contracts for turbines, and how percentage of completion accounting works?
31.
Is there anything you feel we haven’t done justice to or anything you’d like to advise our audience to pay attention to when they’re looking at Suzlon?
