Ujaas Energy: Power Play

Vikalp Mundra, Joint MD & CEO, Ujaas Energy, is on a roll. He says about his company’s future, “We are on full throttle for 2017!” In 1979, Indore’s Shyam Sunder Mundra launched this journey, which today has metamorphosed into a business of Rs 500 crore. It is the year-on-year growth of this solar giant in all sections, which has successfully landed it among the top 5 of India’s fastest growing companies in the Rs 250 crore-Rs 999 crore revenue category.

Started as M&B Switchgears, Ujaas Energy was involved in the manufacturing of transformers. The company got its ignition with the launch of national solar mission in 2010. Diversifying into the generation of solar energy, the company launched a solar power turn-key project called ‘UJAAS’ the same year. By March 2012, Ujaas Energy had set up its very first solar plant in Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh.

“We were in search of a business that could give us scalability because the transformer business is scalable only up to a particular range. So, by 2010, when the policy document of solar mission came to us, we saw a great opportunity opening up in India,” says Vikalp, who runs this company along with his brother Anurag Mundra.

What worked for the company was its presence in the electricity business for over three decades, way before renewables became the talk of the town. Both, Vikalp and Anurag, travelled to Germany to see the workings of MW grid-connected plant.

Today Ujaas is said to be the biggest player in the solar power business. It operates in three segments: transformer, solar power plant operation and manufacturing and sale of solar power systems. Its key projects include Ujaas Park and Ujaas Mysite, where it provides turnkey solution for investors who want to become solar power producers under preferential tariff mechanism.

Apart from this, the company is foraying into residential rooftop with Ujaas Home this year. “There is no one in the organised space offering this service. It is a very nascent market and we are coming up at the national level,” says Vikalp.

At the moment, the company has a capacity of 40-50 MW and plans to achieve a target of 200 MW this year. It boasts of eight mega solar parks spread across the nation. It recently bagged major orders from Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Indraprastha Power Generation (IPGCL), apart from its major installations across the country under the government initiatives such as Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM). The company’s client list includes prominent names such as Apollo, KRBL Limited, NTPC, IOC, NALCO and more.

Ujaas Energy has recorded a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) revenue of 69.04 per cent with a CAGR on profit after tax of 118.3 per cent. The margins clearly state how the company has evolved over the last few years, growing tremendously across its business verticals. It has managed to keep its costs optimised and become one of the fastest growing companies in the solar space.

The company witnessed drop in revenues in 2014-15, which Vikalp informs was owing to the policy paralysis in the country. With the new government coming in, the policies were aligned and the business started picking up again.

During the conversation, the Mundras make a very special mention of the Prime Minister’s green vision and applaud the same. “When the national solar mission was launched, it had a target of 20,000 MW till 2022. Modi turned this into 100 GW, almost five fold”.

With the government’s ambitious target of achieving 100 GW by 2022, Ujaas Energy is well positioned to receive big orders in the absence of established EPC players in the country.