In line with the Central government’s plan of having 25 crore prepaid smart electricity meters over the next three years, several state government power distribution utilities have begun gearing themselves to replace conventional (analog) meters with smart meters, observed Gautam Seth, Joint Managing Director, HPL Electric & Power Ltd. He was quoted in a press statement announcing the company’s financial results for the nine months ending December 31, 2019.
The company’s current consolidated order book, as of December 31, 2019, stood at Rs.368.6 crore (net of GST).
“This renewed thrust by the Government is a major step in the right direction and provides a huge cumulative opportunity size of around Rs.600-900 billion (installation of 25-30 crore smart meters) for prominent meter suppliers like HPL,” Seth observed adding that the company expects to see a positive impact of this in the form of higher revenues and improved realization per meter from the second quarter of FY21.
The company, while announcing its financial results for the third quarter (September to December) of FY20, said that its metering business revenues grew by 5 per cent year-on-year in the nine months ending FY20. The lighting business continued to witness good growth momentum despite sectoral headwinds but the switchgear segment was adversely impacted by the overall slowdown in the real estate business.
“The Government’s plan of spending around Rs.100 lakh crore towards infrastructure and allied industries over the next five years as announced in the Union Budget 2020 is expected to support demand for HPL’s switchgears and other B2C products in the medium to long term,” Seth noted.
The company’s current consolidated order book, as of December 31, 2019, stood at Rs.368.6 crore (net of GST). Out of this, Rs.302.5 crore related to the metering business. Switchgear orders amounted to Rs.66.3 crore while lighting orders were to the tune of Rs.56.7 crore.
The enquiry base for metering orders is at a healthy level, the press note from HPL Electric said. Tenders amounting to around Rs.2,200 crore (for around 1.75 crore meters) have been either floated or are expected to be floated in the near future, it added.