Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Adani Energy Solutions Limited Q4 FY24 earnings conference call. 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. Kunjal Mehta. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hello all. I hope I am audible. Good afternoon and our best wishes to all the participants, and thank you for joining Adani Energy Solutions Q4 results. We have released the investor materials on our website, and you must have read through it. On the very start, I'm very pleased to share that AESL has received an ESG score of 25.3 from Sustainalytics in their recent assessment, which placed the company among the top 20 global electric utilities and helped us surpass the global and the industry averages. We are also happy to share another important development in our Mumbai discom, which is Adani Electricity Mumbai, which again got ranked No. one utility in India in the edition of the integrated ratings of all the discoms through Ministry of Power conducted by McKinsey.
So this is the second time in a row that Adani Electricity Mumbai got ranked as number one among all the discoms throughout the country. We had a strong quarter as far as the operational results are concerned, both in the transmission as well as in the distribution sector. In terms of our performance, we achieved system availability. We continue to achieve system availability of close to 100%, 99.6% in our transmission business, and that led to the normal incentive income that we always get, and we achieved an incentive income of about INR 104 crore. We are also happy to share that we operationalized 1,244 circuit kilometers, and because of which our total circuit kilometers under operation now is around 20,509 circuit kilometers. So this is being very special for us as we achieved a strategic milestone of 20,000 circuit kilometers.
The company also made certain strides in completing certain important projects, the most important one being the 400 kV Kharghar-Vikhroli line , which is an important line to reduce the congestion in the city of Mumbai. We added that line during the last quarter. We also completed the line of the , 765 kV Warora-Kurnool line, and the 765 kV Khavda-Bhuj line, which will enable about 1 GW of renewable power from the Khavda region. So these are the few important projects that got completed during the last quarter. In terms of electricity, Mumbai, the number of units sold ended up being 9.4% higher on a year-over-year basis. The most important achievement that the Mumbai discom achieved was in terms of the distribution losses. Last year, the distribution losses were around 5.93% or a tad lower than 6%.
We further reduced it down to 5.29%, which is the lowest in the history of Adani Electricity Mumbai. In terms of the financial updates, during the financial year 2024, the company achieved a revenue growth of 17%, and we crossed the mark of INR 14,200 crore in terms of the full-year revenue based on the various lines that got completed during the financial year. The full-year operational EBITDA grew by 7% and just around INR 5,695 crore. That is the operational EBITDA that the company achieved. The comparable PAT, after excluding one-times, has also grown 12%. If you exclude the one-times which was received during the last year, the comparable PAT has also grown one-time to around 12%. We continue to remain strongly buoyant with respect to our transmission businesses.
We have an under-construction project pipeline of INR 17,000 crore, which is well on track to get completed during the next financial year. We have around INR 100,000 crore of bidding pipeline, which is going to come up during this financial year in terms of our transmission businesses. In terms of the distribution business, the regulated asset base of Mumbai continues to grow, and from INR 5,500, which was at the time of acquisition in 2018, currently has grown to INR 8,500 by the end of this financial year. The important business, which is the smart meter business, we now have close to around 22.8 million smart meter projects already won, which takes a total contract value of around INR 27,000 crore. That business is now we have already started the implementation. We started the implementation of smart meters in the best regions.
There are other projects, especially the Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Uttarakhand, and Andhra Pradesh . These are certain other important projects which are under the implementation phase. With that, I take up pause and happy to take certain questions which anyone has with respect to the company or with respect to any financial results of the company.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wish to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two . Participants are requested to use headsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a while. We'll wait for the moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Apoorva Bahadur from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, wanted to check with you regarding the INR 1.1 trillion pipeline that you just mentioned for bidding. First of all, how much did it used to be? I mean, has there been any positive movement over the last one year or six months or so? Secondly, does it also include the three HVDC projects which CTUIL had identified as a part of the 500 GW renewable plan? Or I mean, those lines will be sort of added later?
So, with respect to your first question, was with respect to whether this 1.1 includes the HVDC lines?
Yes, the three HVDC lines.
Yes, yes. So 1.1 includes the 3 HVDC lines. So those are part of this. So we believe that in the next 2, 3 months, all these projects would get started for bidding. I think post the elections, once all these bids would get opened.
Okay. How much did this INR 1.1 trillion used to be, say, 6 months back or 1 year back? Are we seeing any positive movement over here?
So this used to be around INR 50,000 or INR 40-INR 50,000 about a year back or probably even less than that. But now the things would start moving much more faster, and we would see more projects coming up into the pipeline.
Okay. Even beyond this INR 1.1 trillion?
There could be a possibility of even beyond INR 1.1. Currently, we have a strong visibility of INR 1.1, primarily on account of the three HVDC projects, which itself comprises around INR 50,000-odd crore.
Okay. Sir, what's the update on your Mumbai HVDC line? How far have we progressed, and when do we expect the commissioning?
The HVDC project, the implementation, the construction is going on. We are looking to complete the project during, say, Q1 or Q2 of the next financial year.
FY26?
Yeah. In the Q1 of FY26. Q1, Q2 of FY26.
Understood. Understood. Also just wanted to check on the global I mean, so globally, we are seeing that there's a transmission equipment shortage, especially on the transformer side. So are you seeing anything on this in India? And if it is, then how are we sort of factoring that in our plans, or can the manufacturing capacity be ramped up quickly?
So you are right. Because of the significant bids which are coming up and the huge demand across the transmission and the distribution sector, there is a constraint, and there are challenges with respect to supply chain. But because of the tie-up and the long-term tie-up which we generally have with most of our large key players, we do not see significant challenge over there with respect to the key components of their responses. So therefore, in certain most of the key projects or key components that we have, we have what we call as already tied up with almost the large players for all the projects that we currently have in hand.
Key component would be your transformer substations?
Correct. Correct. Correct.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I'll get back in the queue.
Sure.
Thank you, sir. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. We have our next question from the line of Nikhil from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. My first question is on the pipeline and under-construction CapEx. So wanting to understand from a pipeline of INR 110,000 crore, what is the typical market share you think which should be achievable for Adani Energy Solutions? And secondly, even in terms of ballpark CapEx for the transmission business, what should be penciled in the coming years for the transmission business?
So we generally are targeting of this INR 100,000 crore. Our share would be in the range of around 20-odd%. That is what we are looking. And most importantly, we are looking at those projects which are very critical for the Khavda renewable sector, for the evacuation of the renewable power at the Khavda region. So those are the projects which we are looking towards, which would take our share in the region of around 20-odd%. In terms of the CapEx guidance for the next financial year, looking at in the range of around INR 6,000 crore, which includes around INR 1,200-INR 1,500 crore for the distribution business, which is the Mumbai distribution. Rest would be for the transmission sector.
But as the smart meter project is also underway, there could be an addition on account of smart meters as and when the CapEx gets—I mean, as and when we start deploying the smart meter in a full-fledged basis.
Got it. That's helpful. The second question I had was regarding the competitive intensity in TBCB projects. So last year, there were murmurs of higher intensity in terms of competition for bidding for those projects. Do you see any of that easing, improving returns on ongoing tenders? Do you see that happening?
No, certainly. So the competition continues to be there. But the most important part is there are very few players in the market who can do certain types of the projects or certain high-value projects, especially certain niche projects like HVDC. And given that background, in certain types of the projects, there are very few players who actually bid for these types of projects. For smaller projects, I mean, in the range of around INR 500 crore where we generally do not tend to participate, there could be higher competition. But as the projects become more deeper, more wider, more niche, then you have very few players currently in the industry.
Understood. Any indicative returns you could guide on, equity IRR that one can expect in these kind of projects?
So we benchmark ourselves in the range of, say, around 15-odd% when we start for bidding to protect our returns, to protect our margins. So those are certain benchmarks that we use for transmission projects, and that's true even for smart meter businesses. So there are certain benchmarks IRRs which we target for both these businesses, beyond which we do not participate into those projects.
Got it. That's helpful. A couple of more questions. One is on any traction on intrastate transmission TBCB projects, or is that still some time away?
Not much we have seen as far as intrastate yet is concerned. I mean, they're not that very large or not that very significant.
Got it. The last question, if I may squeeze in, regarding transmission equipment, as we discussed earlier, would you say transformers, especially higher voltage transformers, is that the key or the biggest bottleneck in executing projects faster, or is it some other equipment?
No, so both transformers and the substations continues to be the key important factor in our supply chain management. So yes, there are those supply chain management issues around because of the huge demand which is there in the transmission, sudden spike in the demand in the transmission sector. And that we will continue to see. But how you manage those supply chain, that's the critical aspect that we have been able to do in all our projects.
Understood. That's very helpful. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Shivang Chauhan from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the status of Dahanu Thermal Power Plant. It was carving out from the AEML. If you could shed some light on that.
As we had indicated earlier, the intention of the company is to carve out ASAP. There are processes involved, and once those processes are completed, we will then be able to make the necessary announcement with respect to the Dahanu Power plant.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Another one would be related to bonds. So any further plans on tenders after the earlier $120 million exercise?
That depends on the liquidity positions of the company and post the CapEx and the business requirement of AEML. The last bond was on account of the liquidation of the past regulatory receipts that the company had, because of which the company was able to do the bonds. Once we have, again, liquidity available, then we will not shy away from doing the bond if necessary and if available.
Noted. Noted. Also, any new funding plans for the USD market for either of the subsidiaries?
So I would put it slightly differently. I would say, I mean, Adani Energy Solutions has access to both the dollar bond market as well as the rupee market and as well as the bank market, which it uses either for this under-construction project or for its CapEx requirement. So at the right time, we tap these markets for our capital requirements. So if there could be a need in rupee bonds, we would tap the rupee bonds. And if the need is in the dollar bond, we could tap the dollar bonds
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Thank you for answering. All the best.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC. Please go ahead. Mr. Puneet? Mr. Puneet?
Yes. Can you hear me?
Oh, yes, sir. We can hear you.
Yes, we can.
Thank you so much, and congrats on good numbers. My first question is on the opportunity that you talked about, INR 1.1 trillion. How much of that is towards Khavda side? Khavda would be in the region of, say, around INR 30,000 crore.
INR 30,000-odd crores. And do you expect that entire INR 1.1 trillion to be tendered out over the next one year, or do you foresee any risk of slips there?
Any risk of?
Slippages and tendering out the entire quantum.
Yeah. This is the pipeline which we have identified. I mean, this is over the next 1 year which we think. I mean, there could be a possibility that 12 months could extend to, say, 15 months or around that. The key important thing is the event which we are looking is once the elections are completed, then the state government I mean, then the central government and NCT would be more comfortable coming out with the bids.
Right. But from a full-year perspective, if we look at 12 months from June 2024, do you think the entire INR 1.1 trillion has a fair bit of probability of being tendered out?
I would say you can say 12-15 months would be a fair estimate to complete it.
Okay. Okay. Understood. Yeah, that's all for my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and 1 to ask questions. We have our next question from the line of Yunyun Bai from Barings. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Sorry. My question has been asked. I have no more questions for now. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Koundinya Nimmagadda from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. So my first question is on the bid pipeline, the INR 110,000 crore that you spoke of. I'm assuming all of this is approved by NCT. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. And specific to that, also the HVDC projects, if my understanding is correct, the first HVDC project was supposed to be bid out about in September last year, and it keeps getting pushed out every time. So any specific reasons that you would like to highlight here on the visibility part as well?
No, so as I told earlier, this is, of course, delayed. Earlier, it was planned to get completed in September. It got pushed to financial year-end. We were looking to get completed by March. Thereafter, this event of election got announced, and therefore, it has got delayed because of these two months. Now, there cannot be any projects bidding with start. So we strongly expect that by around July, August, the strong bidding pipeline will again get started to bid out in an aggressive manner, especially these HVDC or the important one of the HVDC part.
Okay. So specific to the company, we all understand that last year, the competitive intensity has been a bit higher, and therefore, your market share has come off a touch. So I mean, you alluded to the fact that you're targeting 20% share. So do you see any risks or any challenges in achieving this share because your share has dropped a bit for the past year? So just trying to understand what is your outlook on that front?
Outlook in the sense of winning those bids, or?
Yeah, winning those bids. I mean, how confident are you, or do you still prefer IRRs over market share? I mean, what is the thought process?
Yeah, yeah. So you are right. We will continue to benchmark our bidding process purely on the basis of IRR. And that's the key thing which we will look into any of these bids. Unless those bids come at those IRRs, we would not aggressively participate into it. But at the same time, it is very important for us to understand that these HVDC projects are high-return assets, especially given the nature of project and the complexities involved and especially the size of these projects. So therefore, we are also at the same time confident of the 20% share which we have projected on that.
Sure, sir. So my second question is on the smart metering business. So of the INR 27,000 crore CapEx, what is the potential top line that you can see, and what is the outlook? I mean, how do you think it will pan out maybe over the next two, three years? If you can give some color on that, please.
So this INR 27,000 crore, that is the contract value itself. Now, it would be spread out over as you know, the entire listing is spread out over a period of 10 years. So the project value is spread out over the entire 10-year period. The CapEx for that would get incurred during the next, say, 25-30 months or so. So in that region, it would be spread out. And INR 27,000 crore would be recognized over the next 90 months or 9-10 years or which the contract would be done.
Understood, sir. Sir, what are the kind of IRAs you are seeing here? Also, if you can throw some color on that execution on ground level because we understand that it's a bit manpower-intensive. If you can speak a little bit about that front on the resource availability as well.
So on smart meter business, the key components are, of course, the meters. And then the important part is the communication and the networking infrastructure that has to be laid or to be deployed along with the infrastructure. So in case of smart meter, what we have done is that we have tied up with almost all the key components in terms of the meters, in terms of the lease lines, in terms of the communication lines. We have tied up with a company called Esyasoft, which is a market leader in the networking and the infrastructure of this whole electronic smart metering thing is concerned. They have experience of doing this in other regions in India. We have a tie-up with them. We have a tie-up with Airtel for our communication infrastructure. We have long-term tie-ups for our cybersecurity as well as tie-up for the cloud part.
So the supply part of it has now been fully completed and fully integrated. Now, we are looking during the next 12-18 months; we would aggressively look to start deploying all these meters for the contract that we have won. So that's how this thing is run. Most important is that Adani Electricity or Adani Energy Solutions is the only company currently in India or the private player in India which has an experience of running a distribution company and actually installing smart meters and making those smart meters work. In our Mumbai discom, we currently have around 500,000 meters which are fully installed and operational. And therefore, we are very confident of that same thing being getting replicated. There are very few players in the country who are actually doing the business of distribution and being able to deploy those smart meters.
So that same efficiency and the same knowledge that the company has, the expertise and experience that the company has in the Mumbai discom, would be used for deploying these smart meters that the company has already won.
Understood. If I may ask one last question, if you can provide some color on the current status of the parallel licensing that you are working on the three circles, please?
So currently, we have made applications to the respective state governments for the parallel licensing, one in the Navi Mumbai region and the other is in the Gautam Buddh Nagar near Noida or near Delhi. Both are under evaluation by the respective state departments or the state governments, this thing. And then at the right time, the licensing processes would be awarded to us. So it is still some time away before the entire process gets completed and before the licenses actually get awarded to us. There's a long-run process under the Electricity Act. And so both are under evaluation stage right now.
Sir, correct me if I'm wrong. I think there's also one more under Mundra that you're looking at, right? Can you provide us the status on that as well, please?
So Mundra, we are already operating as a distribution business in the SEZ area where we are operating, providing distribution of the power to the units which are operating in the SEZ unit. We have also applied for expanding the entire license area to cover the entire district of Mundra . The most important part in case of Mundra district is to provide most reliable and competitive power to the industrial units which are coming up in the Mundra region so that those regions can get uninterruptive, very competitive power through Mundra. And Mundra utility will also, again, follow the same model as Adani Electricity Mumbai, that is a cost-plus model. And the entire revenue would be dependent on the asset base as and when it gets increased. All the other costs would be passed through to the consumers under the tariff or under the regulatory mechanism.
Thank you very much for the opportunity and patient answers, sir. All the best.
Thank you, sir. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and 1 to ask questions. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and 1 to ask questions. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and 1 to ask questions. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Kunjal Mehta for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Manav, we have two questions in the question. You can please take those.
Okay, sir. We have our next question from the line of Anderson Dong from PIMCO. Please go ahead.
Hi, management. Thanks very much for the call. Can I please share the CapEx guidance on a consolidated basis for fiscal 2025 and also break it down by segments, including transmission, distribution, HVDC, and the smart metering? Thank you.
So, Anderson Dong, the AEML Mumbai would have a CapEx plan of around INR 1,500 crore, which is in line with what we have been doing in the last few years. Transmission based on the projects which are currently under operational and based on the projects which we will win, it would be in the range of around INR 5,000-odd crore. Smart meters would take additional CapEx requirements based on the meters it would get deployed. But it would be fair to be that we would incur at least around INR 1,000-2,000-odd crore in case of smart metering in the next financial year
Thank you. How about the funding plan for those projects?
Sure. So as you know, that AEML would be funded directly through its own internal accruals . There is no requirement to raise any debt in case of Mumbai. There has been no requirement to raise debt since the last two years. We do not expect any fresh borrowing in case of AEML in the next financial year. In case of transmission and even in case of smart meters, it would be a mix of debt and equity. The equity component would be funded largely through its own surpluses that the company has been generating. The necessary debt would be availed at the right time for the transmission project.
Thank you. Last question, can you share the progress of any equity raising plan?
Any what plan?
Equity raising at the AEML, sorry, at the Adani Energy Solutions level.
So there are no immediate plans to do that. But as and when there could be a further requirement or fresh requirements beyond to raise our opportunities to raise our growth listing beyond what we currently have, at that point in time, the company would look to raise equity at the right time, at the right sources.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Shivang Chauhan from Barclays, please. Please go ahead.
Hi. You have mentioned HVDC Mumbai project would be completed in the first quarter of 2026. So just wanted to know if you could share how much is invested so far.
So this project, roughly, as you know, would cost us around INR 6,000 crore in the next 12-15 months. And currently, out of which, around INR 1,200-INR 1,500 crore has already been incurred. So the balance would be incurred over the next 15 months or so.
Got it. Thank you. That's all.
Thank you, sir. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Kunjal Mehta for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
I would just like to thank all the participants who attended this call. In case you have any further questions, happy to connect with you separately. You can reach out to us or to our investor relations team, Vijil. Thank you again for participation in the call.
Thank you. On behalf of Adani Energy Solutions, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.