Home / ANALYSIS / Hospitality Trends / The Power Connection

[More Images]

In an industry where guests demand nothing but the best at all times, an uninterrupted power supply is of crucial importance. Hotelier India investigates the energy management solutions that hoteliers have recourse to.

Power backup devices include generators or gensets, battery-based inverters and Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems. A wide range of these products are manufactured domestically and India is slowly developing as an exporter of generators and inverters.

According to the website www.bharatbook.com, the power backup market in India is growing at an annual rate of 15-20% varying within the three different segments.

Story continues below

Advertisement

COMMENT Comment on this article

With increasing power deficit and about 17% of demand supply gap in power generation, the power backup sector is crucial for business continuity of Indian corporates.

The India Power Electronics Market Report – 2010 developed by Dhaval Dalal and Ram Kumar, on behalf of Innovatech Switching Power India Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, says that the unprecedented growth in the Indian electronics demand (estimated at USD$50 billion for 2009), has spawned a corresponding spurt in the domestic power electronics industry.

Power backup (including batteries) is a USD$1.1 billion revenue industry in India. This industry has several facets uniquely shaped by Indian market realities of customer need and supply-demand dynamics.

The UPS systems refers to a power backup source for limited times, up to one hour or less while the inverter system refers to a power backup source for extended time of power outages, typically from one hour to eight hours or more.

The report estimates the power electronics content in the UPS and inverter markets combined at USD$494 million per year. The industry has seen declining revenues in the past two years of 8-9%, but prior to 2008 the industry grew at a CAGR of over 18% for five-six years.

The sub-5 kVA systems make up 35% (by unit volume) of the UPS and inverters sold in the Indian market. Within this, more than 70% by unit volumes shipped are rated 600 VA and below, which cater to the desk-top computer and linked to the growth of this market.

Recent growth in the penetration of laptops and net books and the erosion in desktop PC sales are perceived as the reason for declining sales in 2009 in the 600 VA and below segment.

The 10-100 kVA systems earn the highest revenues in the online and line-interactive UPS systems market, as per the report. Some of the key challenges include the presence of a large unorganised sector across all three product segments.

Increasing cost of raw materials, lack of consumer awareness and rising input costs especially of battery and packaging are the other challenges of this industry.