



Renewable energy firms plug into broader play for scale, growth
Mint reported on 19 March.Pure play companies in businesses such as solar module manufacturing and renewable power production are looking to enter adjacencies to not only capture a larger share of the renewable energy value chain, but also to achieve better costs, and thus margins, through backward integration, they said. This also helps them attract customers by offering turnkey solutions, eliminating the need for the client to engage with multiple vendors.Investors have also pushed companies to diversify to achieve better valuations over their pure-play peers that focus on one business, experts said.Companies such as Waaree Energies, Vikram Solar, Premier Energies, ACME Group, and Suzlon Energy are some of the players who have diversified after scaling their core business.
This is different from top conglomerates like the Adani Group, Tata Power and Reliance Industries Ltd, who planned a presence across the renewable energy value chain since conceptualization.“Diversification is one of the top themes in the renewable energy space right now,” said Harshraj Aggarwal, executive vice-president-institutional equity research at Yes Securities.Backward and forward integration in the supply chain gives companies better control over the products and improves margins, he said. Backward integration is about manufacturing an input material that goes into your business, such as a solar module firm gradually starting to make cells, ingots, wafers and eventually polysilicon.
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