Luminous Power, a wholly-owned subsidiary of French engineering company Schneider Electric, plans to expand its international footprint while doubling its domestic business with focus on the solar segment in the next three years, CEO and MD Preeti Bajaj told FE.

“I’m very hopeful that at the rate at which we are growing currently in solar, we are seeing a very high double-digit growth. Solar will be a significant part of our business, and we see it as a major growth enabler as we aim to double our growth in the next three years,” Bajaj said.

Luminous Power, which specialises in energy storage solutions including inverters, batteries and solar, has now inaugurated a solar panel manufacturing factory in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, with a capacity of 250 megawatt (MW). Given the extensive focus on the residential rooftop segment with the government’s newly launched rooftop solar scheme, it aims to double the factory’s capacity by next year and expand it to 1 gigawatt (GW) in the next few years.

“If the (solar) market grows at the rate at which it is growing, there is no reason as to why by next year sometime we shouldn’t have another 250 MW of solar panel manufacturing capacity,” she said. “If that momentum continues, we think within one or two years, we should be expanding to at least another phase of the factory.”

The company reported a 14.6% rise in its consolidated revenue from operations at `4,231.34 crore in FY23, according to data from Tofler. Its net worth in the last financial year rose by 17.77%.

Bajaj said the company has added 37 countries to its export business over the last two years, with Nigeria, South Africa, Myanmar, and Bangladesh being its top purchasers. It now wishes to expand its global presence to Turkey and eastern Europe. “We are always looking at markets. We want to look at Turkey, we want to look at eastern Europe. Wherever there is an energy crisis, we are very relevant. You could say theoretically that all of Africa is interesting to us,” she said.

The company’s major revenue comes from the domestic markets while the export business accounting for around 10%.

Asked about the company’s investment plans, Bajaj highlighted that a major portion of the committed `3,500 crore by its parent company Schneider Electric will be infused into Luminous in the next two financial years.

The company is keenly looking at the trends in energy markets and will likely foray into other viable segments in the near future. “We are not just focused on downstream, we are focused on upstream and the consumer at the end really matters to us,” Bajaj said. “The energy market is at a very interesting inflection point, so we are not ruling other segments out. If they become interesting and viable for us and our brand can make a difference to that end customer, we will certainly look at it.”

In the battery segment, the company is coming up with a new energy battery factory in the North-East, which is expected to come up in phases during the second half of the current financial year (2024-25).

“That would make us a multinodal manufacturer. We want to remain focused on the energy transition as well. So when we think about battery factories, we think about battery solutions in multiple advanced chemistries,” the CEO said.

The company has six energy plants, including Gagret and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh, Hosur in Tamil Nadu, and Haridwar in Uttarakhand.

Addressing the price fluctuations of solar modules which impact installations, Bajaj said she is confident of the production-linked incentive scheme (PLI) for solar modules the government launched and plans to manage any volatility as a course of business activity.  “I am hopeful that with the production-linked incentives, we will build an ecosystem…in a few years hopefully, we will make more cost-competitive cells.”