Pune-based Kirloskar Oil Engines Limited, a leading manufacturer of diesel gensets in India, has announced a new identity for its power generation business. It will now be known as KOEL Green, as was announced on December 16, 2014 by R R Deshpande, Executive Director, KOEL and Sanjeev Nimkar, Vice President & Business Head, Power Generation Division, KOEL. "The new brand provides a renewed commitment to our present and future customers as a reliable and efficient product and service provider in its segment. It further reinstates our presence with the introduction of the new portable genset range to our existing portfolio," said Deshpande. The company plans to aggressively communicate this new positioning through varied outreach initiatives.

Speaking at the launch, Deshpande said, "KOEL in known to be setting benchmarks in the power generation industry since the last few decades. As a market leader setting new trends in the genset industry has been the key to KOEL's success, our agility in driving change has given us the reputation of India's most reliable and fuel-efficient genset manufacturer. We are confident that the transformed KOEL brand will go a long way in reiterating this market leadership." Sharing his thoughts, Nimkar said, "As an organisation we believe in continuously challenging ourselves to deliver the best. With the expansion of our highly fuel-efficient portable genset range, we wish to provide our customers better choices with lower operational costs. This range is also supplemented by unmatched product service network with 5,000 technicians available round the clock."

As to how this new identity will impact the fortunes of the company, Nimkar said, "The whole new brand identity reiterates our commitment to best in class efficiency and proven reliability of our product and service offerings. At KOEL, the power generation business contributes significantly to the total revenue, and with this strategic move we are confident of doubling our revenues over the next few years." As leaders in the power generation segment, KOEL specializes in manufacturing India's widest range of gensets, which broadly fall under two categories and brands. KOEL Chota Chilli is the range of fuel-efficient silent gensets up to 10 kVA catering to domestic and retail requirements while KOEL Green is the range of fuel-efficient silent gensets with higher kVA ratings (15-5,200 kVA) catering to industrial enterprises and infrastructure projects requirements.

The diesel generator set market has recently undergone the transition of emission norms (CPCB II) and KOEL was at the forefront to complete this successfully. Notwithstanding an overall slump in the economy in the last few quarters, KOEL has maintained its leadership position in the industry. "The company has consistently undertaken a holistic approach of providing lifetime care to its products and customers. This is with the help of proven product reliability, largest service footprint, 24x7 customer care centre and long-term service contract through its programme called 'Bandhan'. While reliability is a given factor when it comes to KOEL gensets, we wanted to add efficiency to our identity because that is such a crucial factor in the business environment of today," Nimkar added.

Started in 1946, KOEL today is the largest producer of non-automotive diesel-powered engines in India. The company has an annual turnover of Rs 2,287 crore with over 2,400 employees spread across the country. Headquartered in Khadki, Pune, KOEL has four state-of-the-art manufacturing units, four regional offices and 13 network offices spread across major cities and rural agriculture destinations in India. With a strong integrated distribution network, KOEL supplies diesel engines to international markets including the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. It now plans to sell its power generation sets in the US, the world's largest market, and Indonesia amongst new geographies, in a bid to more than double exports by 2018.

"More international markets are on our radar. We have invested Rs 75 crore to help our transition to CPCB 11 norms and are now in a position to take our products to developed markets with more stringent emission norms. The company's current revenue from export of gensets to regions such as West Asia and Africa stands at Rs 200 crore, and the target is to take this to Rs 500 crore by 2018" Deshpande informed. Elaborating on KOEL's plans going ahead, Deshpande said next year would see the addition of 750 and 1,000 kVA gensets at its plant in Kagal. "The prototype is ready, and these will help us offer 85 per cent of the range of the competition," he said, adding that even higher HP engines are in the pipeline to take the KOEL genset range from 2 kVA to 2,000 kVA.

With the revised CPCB (MOEF) norms becoming effective from July 1, 2014 it is now mandatory for all diesel generating set manufacturers to sell gensets, which comply with these norms. These norms are applied to diesel power gensets below 800 kW range. Coming almost a decade after the previous norms, the revised norms are amongst the most stringent genset norms in the world today. KOEL's engineers have consciously chosen to upgrade these proven platforms instead of trying new ones. While doing so KOEL has ensured that complexities and costs for the users are kept under control. The company has been ready with the new emission-compliant gensets well before the designated timeline and have already delivered over 2,000 gensets in the market complying with the new emission guidelines.

"The price of the new emission norms-compliant DG sets is 15-20 per cent higher than the earlier version. I am sure we will have an edge over our competitors as we have upgraded our proven engine platforms. For us, the term 'green' implies three factors: environment-friendly raw materials, environment-friendly processes and higher fuel efficiency," Nimkar said.