I had the opportunity Friday to interview Tulsi Tanti, chairman and founder of Suzlon Energy — Asia’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer and the fifth-largest manufacturer in the world. The story I wrote for the Toronto Star focuses largely on Suzlon’s interest in Ontario as a potential market for setting up manufacturing. But there was more to the interview that I’d like to share below in a Q&A format.

CB: How is the recession impacting the industry?

TT: Overall, compared to other industries, we are fortunate. We can say we’re the least affected industry. But we have a constraint because of the financial crisis — access to project financing for our customers.

CB: You’re obviously the biggest player in the Indian market. But how do you aggressively build wind farms in a country where the grid is insufficient?

TT: We are constructing the grids, it’s not just the wind farms. We build the substations and take the energy lines 200, 300 kilometres and connect to the load base. It’s the total package. Now, we have to charge to our customers for this cost. Based on total project costs, and based on financial costs, the regulator will decide the tariff. It’s a huge intangible benefit to the country. All these projects are coming to the rural part of the country, and small and medium-sized companies are coming to those regions.

CB: How would you describe Suzlon’s business model?

TT: The business model for the group is very clear. It’s end-to-end solution provider from concept to commissioning — the full value chain in India, Australia, and Brazil. In other markets we are equipment suppliers and we provide technology. The Suzlon group is fully integrated. We are producing the gearbox, rotor blades, generator, control systems, towers, castings, all the value chain components.

CB: How do you see technology in the wind industry evolving over the years?

TT: How in 2020 does the turbine look like? We have a very clear roadmap… standardization, lighter and stronger material, bigger tubines, improving the logistical costs. The biggest barrier of this is whether the market requirement will be there. The 25,000 MW in a year makes this a very small size industry today. By 2020 the size of the industry should look like 150,000 MW in a year. The need of the market is volume.

CB: What gets you to volume?

TT: How to manufacture in modular forms, so you’ve got a plug-and-play product. So any country, any market can build those products their own way. So it doesn’t require special expertise or engineering skills. We are looking in that direction. Within that product area, maybe tomorrow the size of the turbines will be 10 megawatts, but the generator and other things are superconducting technologies. Carbon-fibre products, or using glass-fibre instead of steel.

CB: How long is a turbine designed to last, and does that create opportunities for renewal as older turbines reach end of life?

TT: Yes, it’s started already today, because so many countries started this more than 40 years ago. It’s called repowering, and that parallel market is growing. In Denmark, Germany, and some parts of the U.S. like California, the repowering has started. It involves putting large turbines in between smaller turbines and harnessing the upper winds. It takes advantage of existing infrastructure.

CB: Are there any other opportunities you’re pursuing?

TT: The second concept we are looking at is the wind and solar hybrid. A lot of sites with solar has wind available. There is already an infrastructure build, substation, and other things. We are working on providing the technical solutions to our customers… if they want to put in solar they can, and we’ll provide the integration part to the grid. That way they can reduce the overall project cost for the combination.

Tags: Repower, Suzlon, Tulsi Tanti

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