Q1 25/26

Jul 25, 2025

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to ACME Solar Holdings Limited Q1FY26 earnings conference call hosted by Daulat Capital Markets Private Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Yogesh Patil from Daulat Capital Markets Private Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir. Thank you, Shubham. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Daulat Capital Markets Private Limited, I have. Pleasure in inviting you all for Q1. FY26 earnings conference call with the management. Of ACME Solar Holdings Limited. The management is represented by Mr. Manoj Kumar Upadhya, Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Nikhil Dhingra, CEO, Mr. Rajat Kumar Singh, Group CFO, Mr. Ankit Varma, Head of Corporate Finance, and Mr. Arun Chopra, Head. Of Finance and Accounts. Now, without taking much time, I hand. Over this call to Mr. Nikhil Dhingra. For the opening remarks, and then we. will have a question and answer. Over to you, Nikhil sir. Thanks a lot, Yogesh. Good morning, everybody. Thank you all for joining us today. I'll first start with our company's performance and then I'll update on the key updates on the industry. Q1FY26 has been an important quarter for us both in terms of financial results and strategic milestones. We commissioned 350 megawatts of new projects, including our first 50 megawatt wind project. With this, our operational portfolio of independent power producer now stands at 2,890 megawatts, capable of delivering an annual steady state project level EBITDA of INR 2,000 to 2,050 crore and an EBITDA yield of around 14-15%. In terms of new wins, we secured our first standalone battery energy storage projects of 550 megawatt-hour contracted with NHPC. The PPA was signed in a quick time of one month. This marks a major diversification into energy storage, pure energy storage contract. Further, in this quarter we signed PPAs of 550 megawatts of FDRE and solar project and 550 also megawatt-hour of standalone BESS projects. With this, our under construction portfolio stands at 4,080 megawatts, which is all PPA signed, plus 550 megawatt-hours of storage. 55% of our portfolio has signed PPAs for our under construction capacity. We have placed orders of over 3.1 gigawatt-hours of battery energy storage system with suppliers like Narada and Trina Energy. Also, we have secured commitments for key long lead items like power conversion systems, transmission line power transformers, wind turbines, and various other equipment. All in all, we have placed purchase orders in excess of around INR 7,000 crore so far for our under construction portfolio. Further, grid connectivity is in place for the entire 4,080 megawatts of under construction portfolio. Coming to our financial performance now, our total revenue for the quarter stands at around INR 584 crore, which is a 72% increase. Year on year, EBITDA comes in at INR 531 crore, up 76%. We had a very healthy EBITDA margin, which is aided by the operational capacity growth and also reduction in the overall percentage cost. The margin is now at 91%. PAT is INR 131 crore, a very sharp jump, of course, because of the quarter, because the capacity growth we had in this year. In terms of balance sheet, we continue to maintain strong balance sheet discipline with net operational debt to EBITDA at 4.2. How we calculate is basically the operational project debt and the operational project EBITDA. This is well within our guided range of 5.5x which we seek to maintain at all times. Our net debt to net worth stands at 1.7x, which is again very healthy. Further, days sales outstanding has dropped to 36 days in Q1. Of course, the proportion of central off takers in our overall portfolio has moved to 86% now. This really bodes well for cash flow generation for us. Coming to capital optimization and on the finance side, a key milestone for us is tying up of refinance debt. We continue to refinance our debt, and we have now taken in this quarter disbursement also for that debt of around INR 1,070 crore for a 250 MW operational project at an interest rate of 8.5% fixed for five years. This diversifies our interest rate book to some part to fixed. This also marks the entry of new reputed lenders like Bank of America, Standard Chartered Bank, and India Infrared Limited. In our loan book, this is a 95 basis point reduction in the interest cost for this, and this bodes well for our future refinancing. In terms of the financing cost, we were able to reduce our weighted average cost of debt substantially as we take benefit of the base rate reduction and the spread reduction because of improvement in credit rating on credit ratings. We are pleased to share that within six months of full operations, our four SECI assets with a cumulative capacity of 200 MW have secured CRISIL AA minus stable rating. These are strong endorsements of our execution and credit profile. Now turning to operational metrics, in Q1 FY2026 we generated 163 crore units, up over 107% year on year, and our capacity utilization factor improved to 28.5% from 27% last year. In this, of course, Rajasthan continues to be a very large proportion of the operational portfolio. It accounts for 2,250 MW of our operational portfolio, delivering an impressive 30.3%. CUF. Now coming to industry briefly, there are a few key updates relating to industry. The Ministry of Power announced the second tranche of the VGF scheme with a total financial outlay of around INR 5,400 crore. This aids the development of the best projects across states. VGF around INR 1.8 million per megawatt will be provided, INR 1.8 million per megawatt-hour will be provided under the scheme, which will enable development of 30 GWh of batch capacity. This is a strong signal by the government to accelerate the energy storage deployment in the country. On the regulatory front, the Ministry of Power again extended the 100% waiver on the ISTS for co-located BESS projects commissioned by June 2028 and pumped hydro storage projects where construction will be awarded before the same date. This bodes well for the whole industry, the FDRE project, because it has a large component of co-located BESS projects. This move will strengthen the commercial viability of the integrated renewable plus storage solutions. The execution remains strong. In quarter one of this financial year, the country added over 12 gigawatts of renewable capacity, which is a big improvement over last year. In this half year, we have done close to 25-30 gigawatts, which is a very significant improvement over last year. This 12 gigawatt added in this quarter includes 10.6 gigawatt of solar and 1.6 gigawatt of wind, taking the total installed renewable capacity to around 234 GW, including large hydro. Non-fossil fuel sources now make up more than 50% of the country's total installed electric capacity. Importantly, this target has been achieved five years ahead of the original schedule, and we are proud to be contributing meaningfully to this transformation. Lastly, on the demand side, power consumption showed some softness during the quarter on account of early onset of monsoon. At a higher base, India's overall power demand during Q1 FY2026 stood at 446 billion units, reflecting a 1% odd year-on-year decline. Similarly, peak power demand during the quarter stood at 242 gigawatt, marking a 3.2% decline over the same period last year. Of course, our business is all linked to the PPAs, so these industry trends really impact us in that regard. In closing, I would like to reiterate Q1 FY2026 has begun on a strong footing, driven by robust operations, solid financial performance, and strategic wins in storage space. We continue to prioritize disciplined growth, technology-driven execution, and financial agility as we expand our portfolio. With that, I now open the floor for questions, and now I'd also like to request our Group CFO Rajat Kumar Singh to say a few words as well. Thank you, Nikhil, and good morning, everybody. Nikhil has already reiterated, I think there is huge opportunity including the storage solutions. Definitely, from a financing and finance perspective, our focus is going to continue in the growth, but growth with profitability. We are going to have projects which give us growth as well as we maintain our profitable momentum. Also, because there's significant amount of funding required for financing these projects, there will be continued focus on reducing the financing cost. As already kind of alluded by Nikhil, we have diversified our both construction financing as well as operations stage financing from multiple lenders. We have moved away from traditional lenders that typically fund the power projects. We have gone to large PSU banks, we have gone to private sector banks, and also foreign lenders. As we speak, we also want to. Focus on the capital market as well because encouraged by family rating for multiple projects and looking at the central REIA project significantly contributes to our portfolio. I think we expect going forward our rating to be consistently in the AA family. Of course, specific to rating of the projects but also it will contribute significantly to the holding company rating as we contribute and add more and more. Central REI Project. Today our holding company rating is A+ with positive outlook. We look to taking it further as we keep on adding more and more projects, and a certain mix of this financing going forward could be from capital market, gives us diversification into various fund providers such as mutual funds, insurance companies, and also provident funds. I think that our focus consistently is going to be on the cost of financing. We have already started reducing our cost of financing below 8.5% as we speak and also due to kind of policy intervention by Reserve Bank of India and competition amongst the banks and financial institutions to fund this kind of project. We are already getting a lot of calls from banks and financial institutions to, you know, kind of partner with us in terms of funding and reduce the cost of funding. I think that consistently is going to be our approach. Yes, now we can definitely go on to the question and answer. Thank you, Nikhil. Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the Touchstone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. As there is no response from the current participants, we will move towards the next question. The next question comes from the line of Meet Katrodia from Navisha. Please go ahead. Yes sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Sir, could you please provide a breakdown of the current unit economics of the battery energy storage system projects? Specifically the CapEx per megawatt and what internal rate of return IRR are we targeting both with and without VGF? Also, additionally, the government has reduced the VGF right from INR 2.7 million per megawatt to INR 1.8 million per megawatt. What are the underlying reasons for this revision? Right, right. First on the industry question. Thank you. Thank you for the question. In terms of the VGF reduction, as you know the CapEx cost has come down for the battery solution and the government is looking at the tariff reduction which has happened across the projects. Very competitive rates have come. The government believes that reduced VGF will also be fine in terms of getting the economical rates. That is the thought behind reducing the VGF. We think it's a very good move to at least have this much VGF because it will lead to a lower tariff for the state government and it will encourage the development of the projects. It is also in sync with the ISTS waiver given by the government till 2028 because the emphasis is on stabilizing the grid, meeting the peak power demand, and this VGF will keep all the state governments interested to keep continuing the momentum they had built on doing these battery-linked projects. In terms of the projects we have won, the battery projects typically are where you need to. The Andhra Pradesh NHPC project, we have won there. We don't need to basically do the whole evacuation substation. We are installing at the premises of the customer. The whole CapEx which is required to be done on a typical solar plant regarding transmission evacuation substation need not be done. We don't need to do that. The only thing we really need to do is the battery installation, battery system installation, and that is typically done at a CapEx of $100 per kilowatt hour. It is much less than that. The IRR in this is of course lesser than the FDRE, but the risk is also much lesser than the FDRE. They are in high teens. We don't do a project which is less than a 16% return. The returns are much above that for this project. These returns are aided by multiple factors. This includes the VGF of course. This also does not include the upside which an interest rate reduction will provide in terms of the reduced risk of the project because this does not include any land acquisition. This does not include any transmission lines. The risks are almost similar to what used to be there in a solar park bid. That's how it is. The contract tenure is shorter here also. That also is factored in these numbers. Thank you so much sir for the elaborate answer. Second answer with reference to the recently announced 3.1 GW batch standard. It is one of the largest. Can you elaborate on the sourcing strategy? Are we importing battery components in the semi knockdown condition or locally assembling? Are we in full assembly battery packs? Is there any cost differential between these two approaches? If you do assembly here, is it beneficial cost wise or how should you do it? How are we doing this? Right. Let me reply to this, Nikhil. First of all, actually, India is deploying for the first time a large-scale battery in India. It is important that we should get the full product from someone who has already deployed at a global scale. At a global scale, assembly at this time when the industry is at a nascent stage is not a very good strategy. It can happen later. Right. The government. That is the reason even the government has given the option that you can get the full battery from outside by paying a small duty while you are importing. We want to reduce our risk of doing any local assembly at initial stage of battery deployment. When in India we have a 100 gigawatt of battery deployment, at that time people will think of doing a local assembly. Till the time, I think it is more important to ensure the reliability than the. Cost reduction of some level. In terms of the warranty, this provides you a better reliability of the product. Because if you are procuring a cell from a different vendor and wrapping it up by a vendor who is smaller than the battery contractor, then the wrap will not be of the same quality as you would get the whole container from the battery vendor. Got it. Sir, what would be the difference in terms of costing of BESS? In. India or feed direct import from India? Is there any higher duty on the battery pack? How much is the cost difference between India and China? It's India and China. The cost is India is not an option anymore. In terms of the containerized, I think you are only asking about the container, the container part. I think the duty difference is more or less made up by the cost increase which we make up by making in India. It's around 5%, 11% that is the duty difference in terms of sales between the cell and the container. Not a very large difference if you consider the warranty cost and the reliability which is sought by our investors and lenders. Last one, could you share the details on the current BESS tendering and how much tenders are there in the pipeline and how many tenders can come in the future on BESS side. Our key focus on the BESS side is winning the FDRE and the solar plus storage tenders. We will ideally like to have those in our portfolio as compared to the pure BESS tenders. That's the first key point in. terms of the pipeline which you are asking of the new projects which are coming, as we already said, 30 GWh of VGF has been announced and these states will like to consume that in this year or maybe the next year. That much and they can consume it through multiple means. We are seeing that the tendering had slowed down in the last quarter, but now it will pick up because we have multiple bids coming from all the REIs. The trend has shifted to solar plus storage and pure storage. We are seeing less of and hopefully the 24 hour, the whole day procurement will also pick up because that will really lead to a higher growth of the peak power in the country. We see that these growth will be very high. It will be much higher than the last year is what we feel. Okay, got it. Just one follow up. Like I was talking with one of the assembly players. They were saying if we import the cell, cell is 40% of the cost of the battery pack. Duty on cell is 5% and if we import the whole battery pack, duty is 11%, right? They get duty difference of 5, 6% if they assemble it here. Why are we importing full battery pack? Could you give some reasons why it is beneficial to import whole battery pack in India? See 40, as you rightly mentioned, is the cell cost. On that, 6% is around 2.4% of the overall cost, right? Yes. Yes. 2.4% you can save, right? Provided the quality of the integrator is as good as what is available in China. As I said, there'll be a big. Lacuna in the warranty. Because if you're getting the containerized solution from India, then the containerized vendor will need to warranty the whole 15 years of performance. That's a big risk for 2.5% of cost improvement. Are you willing to sacrifice a large FDRE project revenue? We are currently not in favor of that. The insurance sector in India has not developed to pick all these bits and pieces and give a wrap kind of insurance. As Manoj Kumar Upadhya was talking about in the early stages of this, I think we should focus on what best price we can get it right and make the performance for a longer period of time by getting that kind of wrap warranty from the supplier, original equipment supplier. That is the key. We are a developer, we are not. A manufacturer at the end of the day. We want to ensure this plant runs for a longer period of time without any problem. Got it. Also, on part of servicing side, do we have contacts with Trina or let's say Narada for the servicing, or will we do the servicing part? We have a long term service agreement with both these suppliers. On the payment of annual fees, we will get the on site maintenance and the extended warranty which will be provided by these two vendors. Okay, thank you so much. Yeah. Yes sir. Yes, sir. Portfolio. Yeah. Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Samar Andal from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Hello. Yes. Yes, sir. Firstly, congratulations on the performance during this quarter. My question is on the ESS side. The first part is I just wanted to clarify that we will be owning this for the, we will be the asset owner for the battery energy storage system that we are doing for NHPC and we'll be receiving lease rentals, right? Correct. Correct. On the CapEx we are receiving lease rentals and that will turn into our return. What about the energy, the energy that NHPC is supplying, that part will be received by NHPC. Correct. That's an input for us. We are only storing the energy for the AP government through NHPC. The energy will be supplied by them at the hours we are supposed to maintain the service level agreement of availability and output. Basically, energy provided by them during certain hours of the day as required by them. Understood? Understood. Second question is on how, how is an FDRE project different from a solar plus storage or a solar wind plus storage project? FDRE project is essentially same as solar wind and storage project. The difference in FDRE is it could stretch to 24 hour project. Also, technically, FDRE stands for firm and dispatchable renewable energy. If you implement this definition in the strictest sense of the word, you should supply it for longer duration of power. Typically, a solar plus storage tender can have a peak for 2 hours, 4 hours, and beyond that you will need to put some bit of wind if you want to extend the at a competitive price. The FDRE typically can have longer hours of storage, but a solar plus storage may have a shorter hours of storage extending up to 4 hours. That could be one difference. They have been interchangeably used in all the tenders in terms of the FDRE and solar plus storage. The tenders we have, mostly these all FDREs are having 4 hours of storage. Typically, in solar plus storage we have lower hours of storage, let's say 2 hours and in some cases 1 hour also. The difference in the storage time or supply time is the only reason for difference in tariffs. Yes, that is the only difference. The other difference is the fall in the CapEx prices, understanding of the risk by the various counterparties, the entry of various players. There is competitive dynamics, there is CapEx dynamics, and there is regulatory dynamics. All these three always decide the tariff. You would have seen in solar also there have been troughs and there have been peaks. It is all like a market cycle which is under geopolitics also. All these four or five factors play in terms of moving all these tariffs up and down. Okay. Because FDRE is slightly higher than the clean solar. Yeah. If you look at the FDRE of a longer hours, you will find tariffs of up to INR 4.98 which have been signed by discoms. Because they had longer hours of storage, they have supply during even the night time also. That decides the tariff. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nikhil Abyankar from UTI Mutual Funds. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you, sir. Good setup. Just want to understand of this 3.1 gigawatt of order that we have given, how much of this will cater to the 2.2 gigawatt of contracted capacity that we have. I mean, to flip the question, for the 2.2 gigawatt of contracted capacity, what is the quantum of that kept in with life? All of it will cater to the contracted capacity only. What we are doing here is we are trying to early commission the best part of the contracted portfolio so that this 3.1 will basically be catering to 50% of the overall demand for this 2.3 gigawatt portfolio. What we are trying to do is operationalize the best part of the system. We have taken approvals for that from all the counterparties and others. Before the COD of the whole FDRE component, we are trying to get the battery components operationalized, which will help us improve the realizations pre-COD due to the merchant prices in terms of the peak power. That's what we are doing. This is all for the contracted capacity one. Okay, you mentioned that it is. Only, I mean total requirements for 2.4. 2.4 gigawatt of contracted capacity will be much higher. Right? It will be around 4.5 to 5 gigawatt-hours. We are closing more orders. In the next month or so, we are trying to close 2 gigawatt-hours more of order that will complete the overall battery requirement. Roughly 2 gigawatt means 2 gigawatt going to be multiplied by 2 and a half hour. You can roughly, the number will be 5 gigawatt-hour. Right now we have ordered 5.6 gigawatt-hour. We have ordered 50%. Another 56, 55% we will be ordering soon. Out of this 4 gigawatt of under construction, total battery requirement will be roughly 10 gigawatt hours. Out of this, which is PPAs, and is roughly 2,200 megawatts projects, that will require roughly around 6 gigawatt hours of battery requirement, out of which 50% is already ordered. Our plan is that we order, we get first 3 gigawatt-hours this year to install it, then we get another 3, 3.5 gigawatt-hours January to June, install it, and from June to December again 3 gigawatt-hours, so totally taking up to 10 gigawatt-hours, that's what we have shown in total requirement. Understood, sir. Just a final question on the CapEx: if you can quantify the CapEx required for, say, 2.2 new automotive construction capacity that we have. Right, right. CapEx wise, FDRE is closer to around INR 11 crore per megawatt and the hybrid is around INR 8 crore per megawatt. That is typically for this year; we have guided around INR 12,000 to 14,000 crore of CapEx, and for the next year also a similar sort of number. There is a downward trend on the CapEx given the battery prices fall. That is the sort of CapEx number. We already placed purchase orders of close to INR 7,000 crore this year, and as we said, we want to order the battery and we want to order the rest of the equipment very soon. We will try and close the orders for around INR 14,000 crore. CapEx in this year for sure. How much was done in Q1 CapEx? CapEx actually done is around INR 800 crore, but the orders closed is around INR 7,000 crore. Understood. You understand the cycle, right? You place a purchase order, then you open an LC when the product is ready. That is how CapEx happens, and then the CapEx is done. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Dhruv Muchal from HDFC AMC. Please go ahead. Yes, my question was a bit related to the earlier question. Basically, we have freeze the battery prices for 3.1 gigawatt now, at least 3.1 gigawatt. The remaining you gradually order over the period of time. Yes, yes, we have sealed the price. Got it. You will be early commissioning these projects and effectively probably selling in the merchant market for some time until the PPA comes up. Based on your calculation, probably on a R wise or minute wise basis, you see that this project will give you the early commissioning, gives you that benefit, I mean gives you superior returns. Is that, I mean, that back end. Work we have already done. That makes sense, I mean across. Seasons, across time portfolio. For example, generally we only see that in winter the demand falls and merchant prices fall. It is adjusting for all those factors. Yeah, we have done it. In fact, what happens is time shifts lower sometime in the summer. What happens is the evening and it goes to the late night. In the winter it goes in the morning hours. Only the time, what we are seeing is around nine hours is the peak tariff on a one hour average basis for the last 12 months, and 8.78 is the average for two hours in the last 12 months. That's the reference number and the production cost. You can see basically reference CapEx we have given. There is a good sort of economics. For this requirement, you can always go to the exchange market or say short term. Market to buy that power to charge your battery and supply it in the year. Just to clarify it, we will be doing two things. One is we will buy the power from their grid whenever is necessary or sometimes. What happens, some of our plant, they have a. What happens in the peak generation hours? Some of the power clips, we will use free power also to charge the battery. Yeah. Second is on the recent we are seeing standalone battery projects and you're also participating in them. Is the commissioning timeline shorter there? Typically we have 24 months. Is it shorter in standalone battery projects? Yes, it is 18 months in. It depends on the size of the project. The project we have won is 18 months, and the onus on giving the land and the evacuation lies on the customer. If there is a delay on their side, this extends accordingly. Normally it will not happen because they allocate the place inside the service station. What they have to do is just the bay, otherwise the rest of the things are already there. We just need to put the battery. The transformer and they want to take the VGF so they generally don't delay. Yeah, got it. On a portfolio basis, what would the interest cost now be, and given the interest rate scenario, do you see a further scope for this to change in the next two or three quarters? Yes, yeah. Our interest cost on a portfolio basis, especially for operating projects, is at close to 8.75% as we speak. We are in the process of. Refinancing a lot of this debt. Also, there is an interest cost reduction when the COD happens. I think during this financial year, as we end this financial year, we are expecting much significant reduction in the interest cost. One is due to reset of this interest on COD as well as yearly reset and also refinancing of these loans. It's very difficult to say at what, but because RBI has reduced 50 basis points, it will not be unfair to assume that kind of reduction going forward, at least over next six to eight months. I think there will be significant reduction in interest cost. Yes. This 8.75 is on your contracted portfolio where probably you have reasonably optimized on your debt. This is a good representation in terms of what the operational portfolio can give you in terms of debt cost. Operational portfolio will be typically 25 to 30 basis points higher than the under construction portfolio due to the lower than the. The under construction portfolio interest rate will be 25 to 30 basis points higher than the operational portfolio. The reduction is across the board. One is it will be slightly more in the operating portfolio because of, you know, the reset and refinancing pressure on the lenders actually, and in the construction portfolio because of the benchmark reduction. To clarify, we have a two, three, last two, three project which technically they got commissioned in the last two, three months. We expect, we still consider it under construction. We believe that that interest rate in those projects will also go down. There is an interplay of two things here. One is the overall macro and the other is the micro of improvement of our. We listed last year and rating has gone up for all our projects. Both these interplay will take our interest costs further down because as we exist at capital markets and we also understand that there is an arbitrage between the capital markets and the bank loan market also. I think as we go more to the capital markets the cost reduction can be more. I wanted to understand. The question was also to understand. RVA rate reduction benefit is already flown out to our numbers in terms of the refinancing or generally some loans have six months, one year, so that kind of reschedule. Is that completely, I mean, full paid? That is yet to play, not yet flown down to our numbers because some of our projects have annual reset and those reset have not yet arrived and we have not really refinanced. This ISTS project, only one out of the four projects has been refinanced yet. Three projects are yet to be refinanced. They are still running at more than 9% interest cost. We do have sanctions for let's say 1% lower than that, but we have not activated them because we are trying. We don't need the extra debt which is being provided by these because we have sufficient liquidity of more than INR 3,000 crore. We are timing our refinancing as per the requirement because the lenders push us for taking early disbursement, which we don't want. There is significant benefit yet to be coming because we have not refinanced yet. Yeah, got it. Great. Thank you so much and all the best. Thanks. This is. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ketan Jain from Event Spark. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, sir. On a good set of numbers. My first question is around the capacity addition. We've commissioned around 350 MW in the first quarter, and I think 100 MW is near completion. What more can we commission this year in FY 2026, which projects? Yes. What we are targeting to do other than this 100 MW is basically the battery portion of the FDRE plants and also some of the solar projects also. The batteries, which is our focus area, because we are putting a battery at the already charged substations. We have more than 2 GW of centrally connected projects where we are putting battery of our FDRE plants. You can say all these 3.1 GWh we have ordered. Our target is to commission, if not 3.1, at least 2.5 GWh of that by this financial year and we will be doing it in phases. Definitely some component of it will be charged before the calendar year and some portion would be charged before March. That is our target to revenue, basically from a revenue perspective. In terms of the CapEx perspective, the CapEx for the solar, wind all would be done, but the charging of those will be done in sync with the commissioning timelines of the CDU substations because those are being done at the new substations, they are not being done at the existing charged substations. That is how we are planning. So. To conclude, I mean we would be adding 450 MW of capacity and around 2.5 GWh of battery component of the FDRE projects, which we can generate revenue from. Yes, that's what we are targeting. Also, I wanted to ask you on a status on PPA for two, three projects, which is the Sigma, Orja, Omega, which are these two are the solar projects, and one Alpha Renewables, which is a hybrid project. What is the reason for delay? Signing of these PPAs? Are we seeing any visibility in the near term? Yes, yes. I'll give you project by project status on Omega Urja first. Omega, the state of Madhya Pradesh has already got it approved in the regulatory forum. The consent has also been received. I think because of the administrative things, it is expected to be signed this month because all sorts of approvals are there from the state and SJVN. This should be signed, if not in July, maybe in August. This 2.52, there are no hurdles to it as far as we are aware. In terms of the 3.0, the NTPC Alpha Renewables 3.321, that is something which is pending as of now with NTPC. I can tell you which ones we know that are at an advanced stage. This 2.52, SJVN is at an advanced stage. Then you have the hybrid 3.25 of SECI, that is again at an advanced stage. This has again gone to the regulator, it is in two states, one is in Bihar and another is in UP. This again should be signed in July, sorry, August. August Renew Tech, as per our information, of course SECI is leading it, but this is what we are aware of. Another one which is expected to get signed is the NTPC one. That is in discussion with various states, the FDRE one, the NTPC 2.53. That is something we are discussing with NVVN in terms of the signing because they are thinking of buying it directly rather than selling it to the pooled basis. That proposal we are discussing with NVVN and they are trying to change the construct of that. We are discussing with them and we will update as soon as the discussion concludes. Other than that, the Urja 1 and Platinum Urja 1, they are also in advance with various states including MP and Chhattisgarh. We are quite positive that we should be able to conclude this whole pipeline in another four months. The pace has picked up as you must have seen. 550 MW of FDRE and solar we assigned and 5 MWh of battery we have signed. Pace has definitely picked up and the various states are now off taking these power. There is a large requirement coming from various states. Not all states are buying, so there is selective buying from various states. The counterparties have gone better at selling these forms of power because it has now got standardized, and we should see good traction in this quarter similar to the last quarter in terms of signing of these PPAs. Understood. Thank you. Thanks for that explanation. Just one last question. When do we expect our first FDRE project to get commissioned? The partial commissioning of the FDRE plant like we said should happen. The critical part of the FDRE is the battery because solar and wind, of course, we have commissioning already in so many. Battery will be phased commissioning. Battery will be signed, should be commissioned this year, partial commission. The solar will be commissioned let's say by June or in that quarter, basically June to September quarter. It will follow after that. Any one particular project which you. Can say that this project we are targeting like full FDRE commissioning maybe next year maybe. Basically, the whole SGVN project will be charged. The NHPC will be charged. There are all of these projects and even the SECI 150 MW, which is already signed, that will be charged. All these projects will be charged next year. The substation timelines are basically staggered throughout the year. All these projects will be charged next year. How it will be done is these batteries will be charged first, and the solar component, because we are primarily doing solar, will be charged as per the substation timeline. All of them will be charged. Whatever PPAs we have signed. See, all the PPAs we have signed got signed from, you can say, till December 2024. All these FDRE projects got signed before December 2024. The timeline of them is December 2026. We have not signed in this calendar year any FDRE. All the tenders which we have signed are very recent. One DVC which signed. Whatever we signed till December 24th will be charged by December 2026. Understood. My last question is on how is the FDRE execution going on? Are you facing any challenges? Since it's a new concept, how is the execution going on? Just on a qualitative basis. The only component which is new is the battery, right. The battery execution wise is very sort of quite only electrical. Of course, there is regulatory, some IT are new. Right. Let's say we are trying to do early commissioning. For regulatory pieces, we need to take NOC from the counterparty. Sometimes the NRLDC approval is needed. The regulatory piece is new, so you need to take all these approvals, which we are taking for the first time. Similarly, the procurement again, but there are upsides to all of that because once your base case assumptions are getting bettered in most cases. In terms of the challenges, FDRE execution wise is not challenging. It is, of course, the resource estimation. If you are putting a wind in most of our FDRE, there is very little wind component. The wind resource assessment is a complication, which is not execution wise heavy, but from a risk perspective, it is heavy, which we are trying to minimize by not putting much wind. The wind also leads to some bit of variability in your generation, which leads to penalties. That is something we are removing at the outset by reducing the wind component. In terms of the execution, a battery project typically takes a very small amount of land. The risk in a typical renewables project is land, connectivity, and, of course, the transmission line in terms of the macro involvement. These things are minimal in a battery plant, so we don't see that. The other is the resource variability. If your generation fluctuates a lot, you will be liable to a large penalty. That we have reduced by basically putting the same amount of batteries which they want. We are not trying to reduce the amount of batteries by relying on wind, so that we have removed at the outset. We don't see, in terms of the interplay, and all these FDREs actually, in some cases, not a—you can say there is no interplay in terms of co-located. Everything is connected to the national grid, and there is no linkage between the resources. You just need to charge the battery through solar. That is as simple as it gets. The operationalization of the whole thing is not technically complicated. It has, regulatory and procurement wise, some of the things are being done for the first time. So. We are not finding it very challenging. Thank you. Thanks for. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICSI Securities. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, good morning and congratulations on a very good quarter. My first question is, is it fair to say that 2.2 gigawatt which is PPA signed will get commissioned by FY2027 and do you see any delay as of now due to transmission issues or is it too early to say. You're right, Mohit. That 2.2 gigawatt will be done by FY 2027, and it is staggered across FY 2026 and FY 2027, the connectivity. We are not seeing much delay. The reason for that is we have sourced our connectivity independent of these bids. What we have been telling you also is that we source connectivity prior to the bids. That really delinks the PPA signing to the connectivity timelines. Once you source connectivity early, the commissioning timeline of that connectivity is also early. So. The timelines are of course staggered, but we can say that this 2.2 gigawatt is scheduled to be commissioned as far as connectivity is concerned in the timelines you mentioned. Understood. My second question is, of course, there's a huge CapEx layout for the next couple of years, and I think there is some gap in the debt tie-up for the CapEx plan. When do you expect to tie up the entire debt for the CapEx for 2.2 gigawatt especially? Right. We actually are not seeing any gap on the debt side. What we are trying to do is, let's say our project got sanctioned in one of the board meetings of the leading lenders on Friday. We will make an announcement whenever it is public, but the thing is that the debt sanctions are definitely on time and of course we are getting multiple offers for each of these projects. The debt tie-up, all of them are kind of in principle sanctioned. What happens is once we take the sanction, there is a fee payment which we need to do and there is a disbursement timeline which we need to follow. What we try and do is sync up the disbursement timelines with the CapEx timeline where we actually need to spend money. Right. PO ordering is fine, but the lenders want to take their disbursement in six months, otherwise their debt needs to be revalidated. That is why we have not taken consciously the sanction for some of the projects which are getting sanctioned now. We will be totally tied up in next quarter for all the 2.2. We have actually got debt for a couple of them which we didn't draw also. Lenders are also cautiously telling us to ask for sanction only when you are taking the disbursement in a quarter or so. That is all we are doing by defining these timelines of sanction. As far as the lines go, we have lines for the whole of these 2.2 we go on, and we have undrawn debt even in our operational projects, right. You know the lenders give us lines in our operational project. We have more than INR 1,500 crore of undrawn debt for the projects which we have already taken partial disbursements. That is, I think, on the debt side we are fairly covered. The last question, sir, did you see any back down in structure in the quarter due to drop in demand, especially on May 25th? On a macro basis, like we said, on the industry side there has been a shortage, there has been low demand and all that, but we are a 100% PPA type company. When we were selling our one plant in merchant, right, for one or two months before we signed the PPA with SECI, which is the 300 MW plant, at that time we were seeing the drop in the tariffs because of the lower demand. It was only for one or two months for us because 100% of our capacity is tied up in PPAs. We don't get the impact of this low demand because of our PPA tied up capacity. Understood. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Diana Bokhinala from Daulat Capital Markets Private Limited. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir. Am I audible? Yes. Yes ma'am. Am. Congratulations on great set of numbers. My question is on evacuation challenges. We see more contracted projects, that is, which have LOIs signed of ACME Solar, are going to come up in Madhya Pradesh and other states right now. Could this be related to evacuation delays in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and do we see the situation improving in these two states? Any idea on the current status of HVDC transmission projects as well? That is going to ease the situation. Right? Right. So. Basically, Rajasthan's connectivity in 2026, 2027 is not enough for everybody to commission their plants in that state. Of course, everybody prefers to put it there because they have the highest GHI and the associated costs are also lower because of the lower land cost and easier execution which happens in that state. The most dry period for execution you get of any state in India. Rajasthan remains the favorite destination for everybody to put up the solar plants. You can't put up all of your capacity there because you need to time up the connectivity operationalization as per your PPA. What we have done is we have taken connectivity at, we have a cutoff GHI which is the radiation. Above that cutoff radiation, we match our tariffs to the place we are putting up the solar plant or wind plant at. Let's say we have tried and taken connectivity only at those places which have the highest GHI in that state. Let's say a place like Neemaj would have one of the highest GHI zones. It's closer to Rajasthan than closer to MP. Our Neemaj plant is essentially coming in Chittaugarh. It is not coming in Neemaj. So. That is how it is. Similarly, the other state, we have 0 to 1 in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. That Andhra Pradesh project specifically had the seven substations which were supposed to be chosen. Out of those, I have chosen the highest THI zone which was in Andhra Pradesh out of those seven substations. Of course, Karnataka is another state which has connectivity. You need to actually, if you are executing an IPP-based portfolio which is selling all the power to the government, it makes sense to block connectivities across, and that has yearly commitments in terms of the BPAs. It makes all the sense to diversify across states, and it makes all the sense to take plants which are the connectivities which are coming at early intervals rather than later, and not tie up yourself with one state because that's not going to help you commission at frequent intervals of plants. It is very good, and government also doesn't want you to do that. Right. This ISTS waiver, which got expired for solar and wind, is all intent to diversify the connectivity across India rather than keep it concentrated in generation sources. That is why the government has not extended the ISTS waiver for solar and wind. We are moving in line with that direction of the government. In terms of the HVDC, we have taken some connectivity for future in and also in Ramgarh. Those are lines which are slightly dependent on HVDC. We are not updated on the actual timeline, but it should be. The government is trying to do it prior to 2030. We are speaking to the vendors who are doing it. We are speaking to the government. All the intent is to commission it in 2029 or so. We are not relying on that for any of our projects. It is a part of the future portfolio for us. It is part of the large-scale land acquisition, the government land acquisition, the state land acquisition we are doing. None of our pipeline is dependent on the HVDC commissioning. Yeah, I want to clarify here the current, all current projects what we are talking about. They are not dependent on HVDC. We have a three category of project. One project which are under construction. All those connectivities are available in 2026 and 2027. There we are doing and they are not dependent on any of these HVDC or new thing. We have a second type of project which we are planning for 2027, 2028. Again, we have a connectivity based on the project which will win what we are creating the connectivity for 2029, 2030. That is dependent, that is dependent on HVDC. We will participate for those connectivity. We will participate perhaps in the tender this year or next year here just to clarify. Got it, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Vikram Dani from Nuvama Institute Equities. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations. On a good set of numbers. My first question is in an FDRE. Project, my understanding is that when there is a partial early commissioning of a project, the power has to be offered to the procurer at 50% of PPA tariff. The early commissioning of battery in. These FDRE projects will yield us 50% of the tariff cost. Is my understanding correct? Just to clarify, in these FDRE projects the battery is not considered as a source. The solar and wind are considered as source. We have taken no objection from the counterparties that this is not considered as a source. It is explicitly mentioned in most of the PPAs. Wherever there is a vagueness, we have taken the explicit NOC from these counterparties because it is not a source, it is just a storage resource. The generation is. If you are commissioning early commissioning solar or wind, then you are liable to pay to the vendor. In this case there is no generation of electricity happening. We are taking it from the grid and we are not charging any bit of renewable capacity. As long as we commission the solar and wind, then you need to follow the principle you mentioned. Got it. That would actually answer my follow. Up as well as to how we can play the merchant market in the early commissioning of the NHPC battery project. Okay, that answers my questions. Yeah. Thank you. Best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Siddharth from IIFL. Deputy, please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Earlier you mentioned. The battery price was $100 per kilowatt. Is that the landed price in? India or the supply cost like you. Paid to the supplier? My second question is that the NHPC Vespa which we have signed recently, is it right to assume that the NHPC we have signed best supply agreement with the other party as well? Right. Right. On these two questions, both 100 is the landed price. It includes all the duties and the. Logistics cost also includes BOS. Also, to clarify, BOS, transformer, everything, everything. Required for putting up the whole project. In terms of the NHPC project, none of the PPAs get signed until the power supply agreement is signed with the state. That's the practice which is always there for each of the PPA. They had signed with Andhra Pradesh and then only they signed with us. Okay. Okay, that's it. Thank you, sir. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Raman KV from Sequent Investments. Please go ahead. Hello sir, can you hear me? Yeah, my understanding is because we are. Doing a huge CapEx in the coming two years in FY 2026 as well as FY 2027, our debt portion will be substantially. Can you give an estimate, about how much debt can we expect by this year? Right, so see CapEx is financed 75, 25 in terms of debt and equity for us, and typically what we have seen is post CapEx we get revenue within eight to nine months of that CapEx weighted average CapEx being done. In terms of this financial year, our CapEx target is close to, let's say, INR 14,000 crore, but it may, so, but the weighted average, so the debt for that would be around INR 11,500 crore, but that debt will come towards the end of the year because in this quarter, like we said, we did only INR 800 crore of CapEx, so it is completely back ended. The weighted average debt will be much lower than the addition of the debt, will be much lower than the CapEx because typically we spend the money just one month before the dispatch of the product. The whole designing period, whole, you can say, the ordering period, the CapEx is deferred. From the delivery to the operationalization, that is our efficiency comes wherein we try and operationalize the plant immediately post the key equipment arrival at the site, so the whole site is ready before the key equipment come. From the CapEx to the revenue, typically, as I said, our effort is to get it done in six, six months, not more than that. The debt will not be addition, weighted average will be much lower than INR 11,500. It will be, I can't say the number right now, but it will be much lower than that. As Nikhil explained earlier, the debt will be largely coming in terms of income payments, which will happen towards the back end of the delivery just before the commissioning happens. The impact on the overall debt and the interest cost will be lower, and also during the construction phase, the IDC is all capitalized, right? Only when the revenue starts generating. The interest cost hits the payment. During LC phase we are trying to take buyer credit also, so that will reduce the cost during construction period because you know the period the interest rate is slightly higher than the operational period. We are trying to reduce it, we have done it in the past also by taking buyer credit and the equations, and that is why we are trying to get banks also as a part of our lending portfolio because the banks are able to offer you those products in a far agile manner. That will reduce our operational debt cost, sorry, under construction debt cost also. Going forward with the refinancing part which you earlier mentioned, can we expect the debt quarterly interest cost quarterly run rate of INR 200 to 220 crore this year and in the coming year in FY 2027 around INR 400 crore? Because by then your INR 11,000 crore of debt will also be transferred. Yeah, broadly you're right. It could be around that, but it should be lower and gradual because let's say if we are able to load up that much of debt, then the CapEx would have happened and of course the CapEx, there is some bit of reduction possible and as you see, the prices have been lower than our estimates. There could be a slight or a substantial reduction in this number. Yeah, directionally your math is more or less in the right direction. My second part of the. Question is with respect to the BESS segment, with the current delay can we expect this 200 MW BESS revenue to be coming in Q3, and at optimum utilization, what kind of revenue can it generate? In terms of the new NHPC contract you are talking about or the commissioning of. Yes, NHPC tender. The NHPC tender is not a large revenue project, of course. It will generate at its peak around INR 70 crore of revenue at the annual level. Annual. Revenue and of course we have 18 months from, let's say, June. We have that much timeline. We are all for early commissioning of this plant and we are working with Andhra Pradesh government to get their readiness with us. Once they give us the go ahead, we can easily commission it in six months. That's the level of preparedness we have. We are waiting for them to give us the notice to proceed based on their readiness because we don't want our equipment to come and they are still sorting out their bit of work. That is what we don't want to do. When are you expecting this to be commenced in Q3? No, actually we are not putting that Q3 this plant. We are putting the FDRE battery as Q3 and Q4, and not this battery operationalization. How much the FDRE battery revenue potential will be? It will be on the same night. It will be slightly higher because it will be actually quite higher. Sorry. In a NHPC tender you are constrained by the bid you made, and it's a 15-year long contract. So. There is a levelized lower tariff, but as we mentioned in replies to one of the questions, the unit rate for a peak power in India, because you are free to sell in whatever hour you want to sell, you choose the highest paying hour and there the tariffs are around INR 9 and the charging cost is much lower for the battery, as you know, because you can see the tariffs which are prevailing for charging cost. There will be a much higher revenue purely from those, much higher than this number of NHPC. The quantum is also much, much higher. Like we said, we are going to charge 2,500 MWh of battery, whereas this project only has 550 MWh of battery. It is a five times larger commissioning and the revenue and profits are also substantially higher. It's like five times more. What's the peak revenue? I just wanted to understand. We don't want to give a guidance on that since it's a merchant based project. It's all part of our upside plannings. It's something we have preponed, and we are doing it on our best effort basis because all these approvals and everything we are trying to do. We will be able to give you guidance, but that is not happening today. Okay, my final question is with respect to the guidance long term, with respect to FY2026 and 2027, how much growth are you expecting to see across all the world? That is also a function of what we just spoke about in the previous reply. Like we are trying to commission these battery projects, which is the component of the FDRE. Then we are commissioning the FDRE projects. I think most of the research analysts have done the math. I think depending on these commissioning, we will be meeting those revenue target because our PPA is tied up. Right. Our costs have some upsides. I think that is what you can expect. It is the timeline which we have spoken about in various replies, that FDRE will be commissioned by this time. The battery will be commissioned by this time. I think I'll request you to put up these puzzles together, and if you have any questions, our team will be able to take up in detail. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Manoj Kumar Upadhya, Chairman and Managing Director, for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you all for asking a very, very relevant question, and thank you to the entire team that they have delivered a very good performance. As you are all aware, ACME Solar is known for innovation and technology. I wanted to brief you, and I saw some of the questions also you all have touched on. I would like to share with you that last week we finished five years of continuous testing of the FDRE, which is the battery, solar, and the grid together. We were able to test the battery degradation, and I'm very happy to share with you they were very well within a limit what we have thought of for five years of continuous testing. We were also able to test the power electronics reliability because they had to interact with the grid. We selected the very poor grid to interact because normally our grid in the FDRE is connected to 400 or 220 kV. They are very, very stable grid. We wanted to abuse the testing, so we connected to 33 kV and tested all the variation possible in this one. I'm proud to share with you that it worked very well for so many years. Third is we also wanted to test the charging and discharging efficiency of the battery, and again I'm proud to share with you that those testings were well within the assumptions, and that also shows the battery can last for five years, 10 years as it is in visas. Also, it is important in this one how the automatic grid interaction with energy management system will work. For last five years, we are operating in manual and automatic. Both the manual mode is when you are able to schedule based on the customer need. Automatic is that when you are able to schedule based on the frequency need when the frequency in the grid goes down. We were able to test all this, and that will help us to really put that learning in the big project installation. As I shared with you in the last quarter, apart from this, we are also installing 10 MWh battery. Perhaps in next two months, they will become operational at the two. They again will go through the testing by the time our bigger project will get commissioned. All these things, we start small, we test it, and then we take the position in the big one. We are continuing this process and we should be able to share with you in the next 2, 3 months the result of even in the second stage of the testing before the final installation happens in November, December, or January, February. The third, what is also important in this bar business is as we are seeing more and more solar installation, the radiation and the land, these two things have become very important. Technically, what we are finding is that the higher radiation zone, slowly if they get diminished, what we should do, how do we optimize it? ACME started working on new configuration, where we believe from the next project onwards, we should be able to reduce our land requirement by 15, 20% time, which means that existing land in the high radiation can accommodate 15, 20% more solar. That will help us and improve our further generation. This is what is known for and we will continue to do that. The third thing, I think technology wise, we started with a very small testing of few hundred watts of perovskite. Now we are happy with the performance. Now we will be moving to the second level of the perovskite testing, maybe 50 to 100 kilowatts, which we should be doing in the next three, four months, and then moving to the bigger level. That will also show us that when silicon is moving towards perovskite, what kind of operational efficiency, especially in the morning and evening hours in the low light condition, we will gain it. We'll keep on updating you as we finish our testing in the process. Apart from the operational performance cost focus, innovation is the key to ACME. We will keep on maintaining to that. Thank you again. Thank you again for having patience and listening to us. I look forward for your supports. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you on behalf of Daulat Capital Markets Private Limited. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining with us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. Thank you.