Sujana Energy is a part of the Sujana Group, a USD 1.7 Bn (March 2011) group, which is emerging as one of the largest business houses of South India. Sujana Energy is leveraging on proven and proprietary technologies to promote renewable energy production and sustainable infrastructure with an emphasis on Solar Thermal, Solar PV and LED Lighting Technologies, bringing clean and innovative use of electricity to consumers worldwide. In LED lighting, Sujana Energy seeks the power to light up new ways; a source of benevolent illumination that is a non-polluting, has a long life and conserves power by more than 50% in comparison to any other known source. The company believes LED lighting has tremendous potential for applications in domestic lighting; commercial and industrial lighting; rural lighting; and in providing government and public infrastructure lighting solutions.

"Our responsibility today is to empower India with access to LED lights on a large scale, where on one side of the equation we are generating power and on the other side, we are contributing to conserving energy through using LED lighting, thereby creating a new paradigm of Lowering Energy Demand - our understanding of LED. We have an entire range of advanced LED lighting solutions for indoor, outdoor and portable segments in partnership with the world's largest LED manufacturers," says Mr Sundeep Mengarthy, General Manager - LED Business, Sujana Energy Limited, in conversation with Industrial Products Finder. Excerpts:

'Green & Energy efficient products' is the company's stated goal. What are the product lines that Sujana Energy Limited promotes?

Sujana Energy is committed to bringing in new paradigms of renewable power generation, off grid power generation and catalysing the advent of reduced usage of energy through our LED lighting. Our products and services also include Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) engines, Pyrheliometers, Energy Management and Consulting, Solar Lighting, Air Gap Membrane Distillation units and CPC flat panels. All our offerings are built on the premise that power generation and consumption can dramatically benefit from energy efficient products. All our products, apart from being responsible towards the environment also make everyday sense, as they are a cost-saving and energy-conserving investment to consumers of electricity around the world.

Solar power is still considered too capital intensive and hence not popular, especially among ordinary people. What could be the turning point in your view?

The per unit costs of solar power are currently higher than the conventional sources of energy making it unattractive to retail/ordinary people. The government is currently playing a large part by way of incentives/subsidies. The solar market has been striving to achieve grid parity in the recent past, which has mainly been driven by decrease in raw material prices and building manufacturing capacities. Many solar power advocates predict that grid parity will occur in the near future - as early as 2015-16. It is important for the industry to achieve this for solar power to be attractive to retail consumers. Government policies encouraging local production and demand will also have a key role to play in the success of the technology.

From CFLs to LEDs, the replacement for energy efficient lights is again becoming a confusing choice for consumers. What is the solution?

The trend has always been to move from inefficient lighting means to new technology, which is more efficient. People started using CFLs in place of the incandescent bulb due to its higher luminous efficacy and improved lifespan. Now LED based luminaires are nearly twice as efficient and have much higher lifespan than CFLs.People are aware of the LED technology and there is already lot of interest in public for this kind of lighting but one of the biggest hindrances has been the price. As technology and capacity moves forward, the price are going down drastically and soon there will be huge demand for LED luminaires because of their numerous advantages over all of the existing lighting technologies.

What is the waste heat to power solutions that Sujana Energy offers?

The ORC is a vapour power cycle, which uses refrigerant (an organic fluid) instead of water/steam as the working fluid. Functionally it resembles the steam cycle power plant: a pump increases the pressure of condensed liquid refrigerant. This liquid is vaporised in an evaporator/boiler by extracting waste heat from the micro turbine exhaust. The high-pressure vapour expands in a turbine, producing power. The low-pressure vapour leaving the turbine is condensed in a condenser before getting back to the pump. We have ORC systems that operate at 110-120?C and range from 25 kW and upwards. This approach has results in a very cost-effective waste heat to power conversion unit. The compact nature of the design will make it attractive to be implemented in many applications where low-grade waste heat is available.

Sujana Energy also has solutions for process heat generation. We have pioneered a new approach to Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) with our proprietary Medium Temperature

Parabolic Trough (MTPT), a highly modular and scalable technology. Our technology incorporates several design and manufacturing innovations that dramatically reduce the cost and increase the flexibility of concentrating solar energy applications. The modules are mounted into an array, and are installed using our unique space frame technology that allows for mounting them lower to the ground, thereby able to sustain higher wind loads.

Maintenance costs of these systems are also reduced due to both the modular nature and use of commodity materials in the system design. Our high performance MTPT delivers safe, affordable, and reliable high-temperature process heat for industrial, agricultural or manufacturing processes requiring large volumes of hot water or steam in the range of 80-260?C. We understand various applications, which require energy for different processes in different industries and hence we can provide tailor made solutions, which can be integrated with the existing process heat systems.

How extensive are the R&D activities?

We believe in the constant and progressive growth in any domain. In LED lighting with a strong focus on mechanical, optics and electronics we continuously work towards improvement and innovation. We work on products from conceptualisation to production with different stages of development.

Our product development processes include all mechanical designs, PCB layout, thermal management, light management, testing and certification. Our mechanical team works on making new designs, which are thermally sound and aesthetically appealing to people. The optics teamwork on making the entire luminaire more efficient in terms of light output. The electronics team acts as a backbone for the LED Luminaire by driving the LED on controlled current to ensure long lifetime and maximum light output.

For a large and diversified group, how effectively are the synergies channelised across different businesses?

Sujana is a large and diverse group with presence in Construction and Structural steel; Power Transmission and Telecom Towers; Energy; Domestic Appliances; Basic and Urban Infrastructure Development and Precision Engineering Components. Being a part of a large and diverse group works as an advantage in favour of SE drawing synergies in terms of consolidated manufacturing capabilities, market capture mechanisms, and customer acceptance levels.

What would be the near term and long term focus of Sujana Energy in terms of technology?

Presently the market is opening up for LED technology. The acceptance levels are on a rise and we would like to leverage this to our advantage by pushing the technology in to the market trying to maximise our market share. In this process we would educate all the stakeholders making a way forward for the technology resulting in an increased demand compared to now. On the other hand on a long-term basis SE shall strive to gain a market leader position with continuous product improvements by the means of innovation and R&D.

(Sujana Energy Limited, Hyderabad. Tel: 040-23350953. Fax: 91-40-23350963. Email: se.marketing@sujana.com)