JP Chalasani, Chief Executive Officer, Suzlon Group

Many wind turbine manufacturers like Envision and Adani have plans to introduce giant machines — 5MW and above — into the Indian market. Suzlon, for one, does not believe that such big machines are necessary.

The market leader, whose biggest offering is its 3.15 MW machine, does have plans to introduce a bigger one — likely in a year — but its Executive Vice Chairman, Girish Tanti and CEO JP Chalasani, believes that the 5 MW monsters are not quite what the markets call for.

Suzlon, on Thursday, celebrated  30 years in manufacturing, and named December 4 its ‘Manufacturing Day’. In both formal and informal chats with journalists in Puducherry the same day, Tanti and Chalasani downplayed the need for turbines with large nominal capacities.

Bigger not better

But haven’t we been told that bigger machines are needed for sites with lower wind speeds? No, say Tanti and Chalasani. What you really need is longer blades — meaning larger ‘swept areas’ – not necessarily big machines. Chalasani agrees that machines with higher nominal capacity help reduce the wind farm’s footprint, but that advantage must be weighed against logistical challenges.

Read between the lines for Suzlon’s message: “We know the Indian market better.” Chalasani said, though in another context, that Suzlon erects some 50 masts every year and takes wind measurements. The masts are dismantled every 2-3 years and re-erected elsewhere, but the company has data for thousands of sites. Complementing the mast data are Suzlon’s 10,000-odd standing wind turbines — each generating as much data as electricity.

Perhaps it is this confidence in itself that allows Suzlon to take a contrarian position on many issues. For example, on the ‘deviation settlement mechanism’ (DSM) issue, most of the wind industry is unhappy with the government shrinking the band between predicted and actual generation — the narrower the band the tougher it is for the industry to avoid penalty (or not get paid for energy supplied, if the generation is higher than predicted.) Both Tanti and Chalasani have said that such tightening is good for the renewable energy industry, as attendant grid issues may end up hampering fresh installations.

When pointed out that some experts feel that ‘prediction and forecasting’ has reached its technical limits, Chalasani said, “I disagree”. He feels that there is a lot more headroom for improving forecasting — indeed Suzlon is accessing advanced technology for it — and the tighter DSM norms are good — though, he does ask for more time for the industry to comply.

Doing it all

Another example of Suzlon’s contrarian approach can be seen in what Tanti describes as “decoupling project development and project execution”. In simpler terms, it means that Suzlon wants to “develop” projects — buy land, secure ‘right of way’ and all the activities before the company lands an order.

This approach goes back a decade ago, when it used to be said, “jiski zameen, uska machine”, or ‘he who has the land bags the turbine order’. This method was given up by most turbine manufacturers, such as Gamesa and GE, but Suzlon apparently finds merit in sticking to it. In a chat with businessline, the company has identified sites worth 23GW — it has completed acquisition of enough lands for 7.5GW, against its order book of 6.2GW. 

Published on December 8, 2025