Schneider Electric India To Spend Rs 3,500 Crore On Capacity Expansion: Chairperson

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00:00 Hello and welcome to NDTV Prophet. I am Vikas Shrivastava.

00:04 And today we have with us Mr. Manish Pant, who is the chairman of Schneider Electric India.

00:09 He is also the chairman of Luminous India.

00:11 And he will be talking to us today about Schneider Electric's plans in the country

00:15 and how they are planning to meet the rising demand of power in the country

00:19 through their whatever manufacturing units that they have in the country.

00:23 Welcome to NDTV Prophet.

00:25 Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vikas.

00:27 As I said, India's growing demand for power, you know,

00:31 that's almost expected to touch 250 gigawatts this year and in the peak summers.

00:37 How Schneider Electric is positioning itself to take benefit or make an opportunity out of this?

00:43 I think we are first, you know, just to put in context,

00:47 India is a very important market for us.

00:49 It's actually the number three market for Schneider Electric worldwide.

00:52 We have been present here for over 65 years.

00:55 We have 37,000 employees here.

00:57 We have 30 units, manufacturing units, a very big R&D center.

01:02 And what we call as India is one of the four hubs that we have at Schneider Electric,

01:08 getting close to the customers.

01:10 And it shows the importance that India has, not just for the Indian market,

01:14 but also for the rest of the world.

01:16 So that's where we are now.

01:18 As you said that electrification, as the world moves towards sustainability,

01:23 as India moves towards sustainability, it would mean that there is a lot more of electrification

01:29 because that's part of the solution of sustainability.

01:32 At the same time, it will be accompanied by a lot of digitization as well.

01:38 So electrification and digitization.

01:40 And this is exactly where Schneider is.

01:42 Our solutions are in the middle of it.

01:45 And, of course, together with electrification, you have digitization,

01:49 which is coupled with software, and then it gets even more powered with AI,

01:53 which is going to help solve a lot of equations, whether it's about energy transition.

02:00 And also here, as you mentioned, that today we are here in the Luminous factory.

02:06 We are talking about how we are able to create distributed solar,

02:11 which is more on the residential and rooftop solar,

02:13 which is going to be a key part of that electricity generation and feeding the local requirement.

02:19 On the other side, you have to see how you are able to integrate all of these renewable generations to the grid.

02:25 How do you make the grid powerful?

02:27 So Schneider Electric has the digital solutions that are going to create the grid of the future.

02:33 So today, in the past, the grid was one directional.

02:36 You were producing and you were consuming.

02:38 Now, when you start to generate locally, at the level of your homes,

02:43 you need to have a grid which is ready to be able to take the flow of electricity,

02:49 the flow of electrons from different sites.

02:54 And this is a technology that Schneider has, and we are bringing to the country.

02:59 Now, that's on the supply side and what we are doing for it.

03:03 Then on the demand side, I think we have a challenge that how we are able to manage demand,

03:07 how we are able to drive energy efficiency.

03:10 And for us, that is a key part of the solution of sustainability.

03:15 So today we have our software solutions.

03:18 We have our EcoStruxure platform, which is available for buildings, is available for factories,

03:25 for factories like this, for hotels, for hospitals, for large buildings, for data centers,

03:31 which is, again, a big guzzler of power.

03:34 So Schneider has, and similarly for other infrastructure solutions,

03:38 so Schneider has this EcoStruxure platform on which we are able to see how we can drive energy efficiency,

03:46 help customers reduce their consumption of energy, and at the same time,

03:51 matching it with the demand on the other side, that we are able to see that the supply and demand

03:56 is optimally managed at all points of time.

03:59 So you said that you have 30 manufacturing units in India.

04:04 So right now, which are the segments of the various segments that you spoke about, data centers, AI, and others,

04:09 which is where you see the maximum potential, and what's the kind of utilization at these factories that you see?

04:17 So, yeah, very good question.

04:19 So first I would say we are today, our solutions are applied to all these segments, right?

04:25 Electricity is all-pervasive, and therefore the solutions of Schneider are all-pervasive.

04:31 Now, having said that, for us, the factories that we have today are facing the rising demand that we have in India,

04:41 as well as the world, because, you know, it's India for India, as well as India for the world, the plants that are operating.

04:47 Today the plants are operating at a very high level of capacity utilization.

04:52 At Schneider Electric, we have already announced that we will have, you know, about an investment of 3,500 crores

04:58 that we will be making in India to increase our capacity, and this is, I would say, broadly all across.

05:04 You've seen that we have expanded Luminous.

05:06 We have our, in India we operate with three brands, mainly, we have, amongst the other smaller brands,

05:12 Luminous is one where we are here today.

05:14 We have L&T Electrical and Automation, which is the other brand that we have, expanding capacity there,

05:20 as well as we have Schneider Electric brand, you know, and Schneider Electric being the parent for all of them.

05:26 We are increasing capacity also in the Schneider Electric brand.

05:29 So, it is everywhere, and this is the position of India today.

05:34 It's the fastest growing economy in the world.

05:37 You know, it is, very soon it's going to be the third largest economy.

05:40 For Schneider, as I said, it's already the third, so it has that important place.

05:44 Yeah, so you said 3,500 crore investment for a Y25 is what you're talking about.

05:49 It's something that we have announced going forward, yes.

05:52 So, you haven't fixed the timeline, like, for the next…

05:54 So, yeah, but at the same time, you know, as we have said that once we meet, once we have invested that,

06:00 and the capacity comes in stream, we will start to, you know, as the growth continues, which we expect it to,

06:06 we will be investing more.

06:08 Right. One last question.

06:10 Schneider Electric, especially given the kind of requirement for technology that we have,

06:15 what's the kind of role that you see for AI and machine learning,

06:19 and also, is this being developed in this country itself, or you're looking for technology from abroad?

06:25 So, we are, of course, again, AI is everywhere.

06:29 We are looking at how AI is going to help us drive more, and more on the energy transition side,

06:37 more on the energy efficiency side, and how we are able to better serve our customers,

06:43 as well as drive productivity inside the company.

06:46 So, you know, it's on every side.

06:49 So, these are still early days on the applications that are being developed.

06:54 India, for us, as part of, I mentioned before, the R&D solutions, plays a very important role in that,

07:00 and we have our team of AI also based here in India.

07:06 Okay. Thank you very much for spending time to talk to NDTV.

07:10 Thank you.

07:11 It was a pleasure.

07:12 Thank you.

07:14 [END]

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