Suzlon Energy’s March quarter (Q4FY26) report card suggests that India’s wind power cycle is no longer merely a policy aspiration but increasingly becoming an execution story.
Revenue surged 45% year-on-year (y-o-y) to almost ₹5,500 crore. Ebitda increased by 39% to ₹964 crore, while profit before tax jumped 51% to ₹833 crore. Suzlon’s order book remained robust at 5,892 MW, including a 195 MW order bagged in May.
The company allayed longstanding concerns over execution in the industry. Due to transmission bottlenecks, grid stability and regulatory hurdles, the gap between Suzlon’s deliveries and installations had been increasing, leading to apprehensions in recent quarters on execution and new order inflows.
FY25 saw 1,550 MW in deliveries, but only 336 MW of installations. In Q4, the company showed that this may finally be changing as deliveries jumped 45% to 830 MW, taking deliveries in FY26 to 2,456 MW, in line with the 60% year-on-year growth guidance.
Against this, the commissioning of 744 MW was better than in FY25. Moreover, another 971 MW has been erected and awaits installation, of which 350 MW is largely ready, pending customer site readiness and grid connectivity.
Commissioning momentum is expected to get a boost in FY27 as EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) integration improves and the company’s ‘DevCo’ strategy gathers pace. Instead of remaining a wind turbine OEM, it is increasingly positioning itself as an integrated renewable energy platform – a DevCo focusing on land aggregation, approvals, transmission connectivity, EPC execution and FDRE (firm and dispatchable renewable energy) solutions.
A project implementation agreement with Andhra Pradesh can become the DevCo’s scaled proof of concept. Suzlon now has a development pipeline of almost 25 GW across India. The management expects the EPC-share of its order book to expand from 28% in FY26 to 50% by FY28.
Wind power rising
True, India’s power deficit, coupled with rising renewable energy demand, could create tailwinds for the country’s largest wind turbine manufacturer. The usage of wind power, which is available in the evening unlike solar, is improving.
“Wind’s contribution to peak demand is increasing, with 21% during the evening peak of 250 GW (when solar was 0%), compared to 5% during the daytime peak of 270 GW (when solar contributed 22%),” Systematix Institutional Equities pointed out.
The West Asia war may step up the structural shift. Disruptions in gas-based power generation, along with rising evening electricity demand during El Nino conditions, have created acute power shortages during non-solar hours.
Suzlon expects 8-10 GW of wind projects in India to be commissioned in FY27, surpassing FY26’s 6.1 GW, with a further increase to 15 GW expected by FY31.
That said, while higher EPC contribution improves execution control and customer stickiness, these projects typically operate at lower return ratios, higher debt and longer working capital cycles than pure equipment sales.
Meanwhile, despite a 15% decline over the past year, the stock trades at about 28x FY27 earnings based on consensus Bloomberg data. For a business transitioning into the highly cyclical EPC industry fraught with execution risks, along with continued grid bottlenecks and policy dependence, the valuation comfort is limited.
As Nuvama Research analysts said in a report dated 25 May, “We expect the wind industry to plateau at 8-10 GW over two-three years (similar to management estimate as competition from solar + BESS projects intensify).”
Assuming Suzlon retains a 30-35% share, they expect execution to plateau at about 3.0-3.5 GW annually over FY27-28.