The sluggish order inflow during the first half notwithstanding, Jitendra Kumar Agarwal, Joint Managing Director, Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd, expects that the company’s order inflow will turn robust from November 2020 onwards.
Commenting on the company’s performance during Q2 of FY21, Jitendra Kumar Agarwal, Joint Managing Director, Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd, noted, “Our business operations have recovered to a great extent vis-à-vis the previous quarter, though it will take some time before we reach pre-COVID capacity utilization levels. The order inflow has remained sluggish as tendering has been slightly delayed and spilled over to the second half of this financial year. We expect robust order inflow to start from the month of November 2020.”
Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd reported an outstanding order book of Rs.1,068 crore as of September 30, 2020, improving significantly from Rs.943 crore, as of March 31, 2020, but significantly lower than Rs.1,498 crore as of March 31, 2019.
Maintaining that the energy metering business has bright prospects, Agarwal observed, “Smart meters are longer a point of debate or contention for stakeholders in the Indian power sector. The issue of under-billing and under-recovery of collections is resulting in more thanRs.1lakh crore of revenue loss annually discoms. A recent report by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), the agency responsible for implementation of smart meters across the country showed that all states where smart meters were installed had good results with an average increase in billing of nearly 25 per cent. Utility companies are estimated to recover their entire investment in smart meters in just 2-3 years by way of huge savings from decrease in power theft and increase in collections.”
Genus Power Infrastructures is the largest player in India’s electricity meter industry with an estimated market share of 27 per cent in the overall energy meter industry. In the case of smart meters, Genus’ market share is 70 per cent.
Identifying the opportunity for smart meters, a presentation by Genus said that India had plans to install up to 130 million smart meters by 2021. Besides, India has some 200 million legacy meters that will eventually need to be replaced by smart meters.
Explaining the concept of smart meters, the presentation by Genus explained that smart meters are remarkably different from electronic meters. While electronic meters measure only the amount of utility (electricity, gas, water, etc) used, a smart meter is used to measure the utility and then transmit the reading without any human intervention. This allows utilities to introduce different prices for different consumption during different seasons. It also allows utilities to control devices due to a two-way communication between the meter and the central system.
Genus has an installed capacity of 10 million meters per year, spread over its various manufacturing facilities in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Assam.
(This story is based on an investor presentation by Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd, discussing the company’s performance during the first half of FY21.)
Featured photograph shows a smart meter R&D laboratory of Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd
