Power continuity is becoming critical across every business segment: Fuji Electric India
- December 28, 2020
Fuji Electric started direct operations in India in 2019, focusing mainly on drives and automation products. It recently entered the power continuity business through the acquisition of Consul Neowatt Power Solutions. We have Sriram Ramakrishnan, Managing Director, Fuji Electric India, who is also the Managing Director of Fuji Electric Consul Neowatt Pvt Ltd, telling us more on the power continuity and power quality business of Fuji Electric in India.
We understand that Fuji Electric has been locally operating in India since 2009, and that the acquisition of Consul Neowatt Power Solutions took place in 2019. Do we presume that before the acquisition, Fuji Electric did not have any UPS-related business in India?
Fuji Electric has had a presence in India since the 1980s through joint ventures and a sales office. The company started direct operations in India in 2009 with the setting up of a 100 per cent subsidiary Fuji Electric India which was focused on drives, automation and instrumentation products. It is only with the acquisition of Consul Neowatt in 2019 that Fuji Electric entered the UPS related business in India.
What was the rationale behind the acquisition of Consul Neowatt? How did the acquisition complement the existing businesses of Fuji Electric India?
Fuji Electric (FE) is globally developing its core business of power electronics systems and India has been identified as one of the key markets as part of FE’s global growth plan. FE will expand its power electronics systems business in India, targeting mainly the manufacturing industries, core heavy industries, buildings, infrastructure and data center market.
With the acquisition of Consul Neowatt Power Solutions Pvt Ltd, Fuji Electric has a strong presence across India with almost 1,000 employees, four manufacturing plants and a pan India sales network operating out of 25 offices with ability to provide support services in over 80 locations through 400 factory trained service engineers.
The targeted markets in India for FE products represent a market opportunity in excess of Rs.10,000 crore and the FE India 2.0 Plan envisages Fuji Electric becoming among the top companies in all the targeted market segments in India to reach Rs.1,500 crore turnover by 2023.
Fuji Electric believes to succeed in the fast growing but highly competitive Indian market will require us to be close to the customer and to tailor our solutions to provide overall value for the customer and this is the foundation of FE India 2.0 Plan of “In India for India+” strategy.
This means that the company will use local R&D capabilities to develop products that are priced competitively and designed to perform in demanding site and power conditions. Further the company will look to expand its local manufacturing capabilities for faster introduction of products in the market with establishment and localization of the entire process of production and supply in India—from product development to material procurement, manufacturing, and quality assurance—of AC drives, UPSs and other components. This will also see India becoming a hub for products that will also be sold in markets like Africa and Middle East that have a similar challenging site and power conditions.
Tell us about your current range of UPS systems, highlighting those in the three-phase category.
Fuji Electric today has one of the most comprehensive UPS product range in the market starting from Finch series of UPS which are single-phase UPS that are mainly targeted towards office, retail, CCTV, banking and smart city applications. There are three individual product families within this range namely Finch PG, Finch PW and Finch RT that can be tower or rack mounted.
For three phase applications we have the Falcon UPS family that is available from 5 to 600kVA and can be paralleled upto 4,800kVA. We offer three-phase UPS with in-built transformer and also transformer-free options with both IGBT and SCR rectifier options. Our solution experts can recommend the most suitable UPS for each application.
We recently launched the Falcon X Series UPS based on the revolutionary 3 level T-NPC (T-type neutral point clamped) technology and smart features to give customers the benefit of optimal COO (cost of ownership), higher reliability and flexibility in installation & maintenance. The X Series was developed to give the users a UPS with premium level of power protection for critical loads with higher efficiency and give ample flexibility for easy installation that is achieved by eliminating requirement for additional construction, new panel boards, changes to earthing as well as any changes or over-sizing of infrastructure, all of which have been traditional pain points for UPS installation.
For IT and Critical applications, we have the Falcon 7000M modular UPS that allows customers to choose among flexible configurations of 25, 30 and 50 KW modules for vertical scalability with a maximum of 6 and 10 modules in a frame, based on the requirement.
We have also introduced the legendary 7000HX series UPS for data centre applications, which has been used extensively in Japan for similar applications and its uptime performance and energy efficiency has been attested by various customers.
For industrial applications Fuji Electric offers the Falcon 1000 UPS that is designed to perform in harsh indoor as well as outdoor environments in oil & gas facilities, power plants and mining operations.
Apart from power backup/continuity solutions, we understand that Fuji Electric Consul Neowatt (FCN) also offers power quality products like harmonic filters, etc. Tell us more.
Fuji Electric has a range of industry leading power conditioning products to handle under and over voltage, line noise, transients and harmonics. The servo controlled voltage stabilizer (SCVS) is the No. 1 SCVS brand in the country with over 100,000 installations in the country as well as the preferred brand for many OEM companies in CNC segment. The SCVS is available in an overall range from 10kVA to 3500kVA in air-cooled and oil-cooled versions.
The Fuji Electric Iora 3000 Active Harmonic Filter (AHF) is India’s premier AHF with over 100,000 Amps corrected over the last three years and ranges from 30A to 1000A in a single frame.
For power distribution the customer can choose the Kite X3 intelligent PDU with transformer available in a range from 80 to 600kVA.
We are among the first in the country to offer IPS (Isolated Power Supplies) for hospitals. The IPS enables superior safety for patients who are connected to life saving devices in ICUs, OTs to ensure that any leakage of current is promptly identified and controlled.
Where are the current manufacturing plants of FCN located? Are there plans of capacity expansion in the medium term?
Fuji Electric currently has three modern manufacturing units in India located in Chennai, Pune and Bhiwandi that are ISO 9001: 2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certified.
The manufacturing facilities in Chennai and Pune will both be expanded by 50,000 sqft and 75,000 sqft, respectively. This expansion is being done to increase the capacity for manufacturing of three product categories; VFD, UPS and solar inverters.
FCN recently won the “India Design Mark” for the Falcon range of UPS systems. Please discuss the positive impact on Fuji Electric’s UPS business in India.
The award is given in recognition for excellence in product innovation and design. India Design Mark symbolizes product excellence in form, function, safety and innovation which communicates that the product is usable, durable and aesthetically appealing. For a product to qualify for the awards it has to be made in India, designed in India and sold in India. This award is a testimony to our India R&D and engineering team to develop world class UPS, AHF and Solar Products right here in India for not only India but also for the overseas market.
The low-rating UPS market in India (say less than 1,000 VA), we understand, is dominated by local players that do not offer quality products or after-sales service. What is your view? With the advent of mobile telephony, do you feel that the market for such low-rating UPS has generally shrunk?
Yes, the sub-1000VA UPS primarily was used for desktop computers. This segment is largely stagnant with the switch to laptops and mobile devices for both home and office purposes. While on the other hand providing continuity of power and power protection to wireless routers, home security systems, CCTVS and high-end TVs and monitors continues to be a growth area for this range of UPS.
It is also said that India is not fully self-reliant when it comes to power electronics used in UPS systems. What is your reading of the situation?
The market in India for power electronics is growing and today many of the components like capacitors, magnetics, PCBA used in power electronic products like UPS, Variable Frequency Drives, AHF are locally manufactured.
Still many other components like power semiconductors (IGBT, SCR, Diodes, MOSFETS) and ICs like DSPs are imported. The government is working on several plans to encourage manufacturers to set up semiconductor fabs, electronic component manufacturing and device packaging units in India which hopefully will encourage development of a more complete ecosystem of power electronic component suppliers in India
Several multinationals have grown their UPS business in India through acquisitions (e.g. Schneider-Luminous, Legrand-Numeric, etc). Any observations?
The large and growing India UPS market has been a driver for MNCs to acquire local India companies. The main reason was to leverage the sales and service network of these Indian companies to market more products to the customer base serviced by the Indian UPS companies. On the other hand many UPS companies in India (both MNC and Local) also have grown organically. Overall the market for UPS is consolidating in India also as evidenced in most developed economies.
How do you generally view the prospects for the power continuity/power quality business in India? What would you regard as the biggest business growth drivers for FCN?
We are very upbeat on the prospects for power continuity and power quality business in India as the country has just commenced on the journey of 24/7 globally connected business where business continuity is very critical and is expected as a basic requirement for business growth.
The growth in e-commerce, online banking and cloud computing is driving the rapid expansion of the datacenter market in India. Datacenters are power hungry and power continuity and power quality are extremely critical; downtimes of even milliseconds could end up becoming disastrous to business revenues for such companies.
It is not just the new-age industries but power continuity and power quality is becoming critical across every business segment from printing to pharmaceuticals, diamond cutting to textiles, metro rail operations to airports as each industry is today heavily dependent on electrically powered machinery and monitoring equipment.
