Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Azure Power's third quarter fiscal 2022 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 touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikas Bansal, Head Investor Relations at Azure Power. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Bansal.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On Friday evening, the company issued a press release announcing results for the third quarter of fiscal 2022, ended December 31st, 2021. A copy of the press release and the presentation are available on the investor section of Azure Power's website at azurepower.com. With me today are Ranjit Gupta, CEO, Murali Subramanian, COO, and Pawan Kumar Agrawal, CFO. Ranjit will start the call by going through key highlights and business updates. Murali will then follow with an update on our projects under construction and an industry update. Pawan will then provide an update on the quarter, and then we will wrap up the call with Ranjit providing quarter four financial year 2022 guidance and the initial financial year 2023 guidance. After this, we will open up the call for questions.
Please note our Safe Harbor statements are contained within our press release, presentation materials, and available on our website. These statements are important and integral to all our remarks. There are risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review the press release we furnished in our Form 6-K and presentation on our website for a more complete description. Also contained in our press release, presentation materials, and annual report are certain non-GAAP measures that we reconcile to the most comparable GAAP measures. These reconciliations are also available on our website in the press release, presentation materials, and annual report. It is now my pleasure to hand it over to Ranjit.
Thank you, Vikas. Very good morning, everyone. It's almost two years since COVID first broke out globally. Since then, the world has started to move on, and we all have learned ways to coexist in this new normal. The fact that India came out of the third wave recently in less than a month and without much care underlines this progress and the importance of vaccination and COVID-appropriate behavioral changes. ESG has always been at the core of our business success. We recently released our third sustainability report for the period 2020-2021, in which we have highlighted a number of significant steps taken towards improving our ESG standards.
We significantly reduced net water consumption across our plants from 122 L per MWh in 2017-2018 to 49 L per MWh in 2021, and this has further improved to 30 L per MWh in the current year. This has been possible with active deployment of robotic and dry cleaning technology at our plants. We continue to aim for net water neutrality in our operations by 2023. We have maintained our carbon neutral status since 2019 and expect to further create significant positive impact as we look to migrate to 100% electric vehicles by 2030 under our electric vehicle policy. The biggest news for us since the last call has been signing of 2,333 MW of PPA, taking the total PPA power purchase agreement signed to 2,933 MW to 2,933 MW of the 4,000 MW SECI manufacturing capacity.
This 2.9 GW capacity assures sustained base growth for Azure over the next four fiscal years, and the attractive tariffs provide a long runway of profitable value accretive growth for our shareholders. We continue to participate in auctions beyond the 4 GW capacity and have received 470 MW of LOA. These include one plain vanilla wind project and two wind solar hybrid projects. We are developing 1,000 MW of wind sites across the best wind regions in India to construct projects we have won and prepare for projects we intend to win.
As we begin to implement these projects starting next fiscal, we reached out to our shareholders around end of this quarter to raise $250 million via our first rights offering, which is completed post-quarter end. Our capital team has been unstoppable this year. In addition to our first solar green bond refinancing in August with the lowest coupon dollar green bond to date by any renewable company in India, we have refinanced 1 GW of our operating projects, saving more than 200 bps in interest cost. These are long tenor refinancings with interest rates fixed for at least three years on average. This 200 basis point reduction in interest for these 1 GW projects is expected to release approximately $10 million of EBITDA towards free cash flow annually. We continue to see steady improvements on key operational parameters we report.
We had 37% more megawatts operating in quarter three this year than we did at the same time last year. There has been a 27% year-on-year increase in EBITDA from our operating assets and a 58% increase in cash flow to equity from operating assets during the quarter. From an industry perspective, the renewable energy sector in India continues to be high priority for the government. India recently announced Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia policy, which will help boost development of renewable energy capacity. Hydrogen and Ammonia are envisaged to be fuels of the future, which will help mitigate India's fossil fuel dependency. Industry is also expecting a Green Hydrogen purchase obligation which may push Green Hydrogen production.
The budget allocated an additional $2.6 billion toward Production Linked Incentive program to boost domestic solar manufacturing as we move toward reducing dependency on imports in the solar value chain. After notifying rules for overhauling of transmission system planning and easier access through general network access, government has recently approved second phase of the Green Energy Corridor program, which will aim to add over 10,000 Ckt at a cost of $1.6 billion to support evacuation of 20 GW of RE capacity from seven states. The budget also envisages sovereign green bonds to be launched for funding green infrastructure development.
These proactive measures underline the importance with which RE sector is growing in the country and focus of policymakers in ensuring that it delivers the promised growth and objectives for India's goal of self-reliance in energy by 2047, i.e., hundredth year of Indian independence. This also presents a reassuring scenario for global investors who are keenly tracking the increasing investments in this sector. As I mentioned last time, we have been strengthening our capabilities in clean energy domain in India and are in the initial phase of deep engagements with value chain players in the Green Hydrogen space. Further, to address and capitalize on a growing sense of urgency in corporate consumers to walk the decarbonization pathway, Azure has structured a new business unit to drive this energy transition under dedicated and capable leadership.
The energy transition business is focused on delivering innovative solutions for power and heat for large energy consumers, including steel, cement, metals, glass and other companies, to accelerate their sustainability goals and targets. These solutions include around-the-clock RTC power, peak and dispatchable power based on storage, green steam, Green Hydrogen, et cetera. I want to update about a change in our board, as we announced earlier in the day today. Ms. Christine McNamara joins the board effective tomorrow as an Independent Non-Executive Director. She will take over the Chair of the Audit Committee. An integral part of the board for six years, Mr. Arno Harris indicated his desire to pursue other commitments. We express our gratitude to Arno for his guidance at the board and for the management over these years. I wish him all the best, and I personally look forward to staying in touch with him.
We welcome Christine to the board. Her extensive experience speaks volumes of her leadership strengths, and we look forward to working with her. I joined Azure almost three years back when we took up the task of consolidating and realigning our strategy towards business growth. I'm very excited to see that we have crossed that bridge in positioning Azure strongly and firmly with a super value accretive pipeline for not months but years to come, and have significant potential growth with our strides in energy storage, Green Hydrogen and energy transition space. We continue to look for suggestions from our investors and stakeholders on how we can further improve our disclosures and make it easier for you to understand and value our business. With that, I would like to turn it over to Murali.
Thank you, Ranjit. This is probably the shortest time between our two reportings, but as you heard, Ranjit, we have significant updates from this, from our business. Against all odds and navigating through a brief third wave of COVID in India subsequent to the quarter end, our engineering, procurement and construction teams have worked tirelessly to bring us to the finish line on our construction projects. We commissioned 273 MW since we last reported, and requisite material for balance megawatts are already at site or in transit. This places us well to be in the range of the megawatt guidance for this fiscal. Our largest project, SECI 600 MW Rajasthan 6, is now fully commissioned, and we expect it to deliver superior performance to our portfolio from the next fiscal onward.
The second 300 MW Rajasthan 8 is also in line to be fully commissioned shortly, and even though Rajasthan 9 was impacted due to supply-related challenges, we will persevere. While this is about our under construction projects, we are very excited about our 4 GW projects, where we now have signed PPAs for almost 3 GW, and we look forward to bringing these up to shovel-ready stage very quickly. We have provided a scheduled timeline for these projects on page 5. We are at an advanced stage of development work, and depending upon timing of material procurement, we would look to bring forward some of these timelines. As Ranjit pointed out, these projects give us ample space to work our way through on implementation and ensure superior returns compared to current market. We have provided some highlights of our ESG updates on page six and seven.
Our focus on reducing our water consumption has really paid off in conserving this scarce natural resource. Our net consumption has further reduced to 30 L per MWh in the current year, and we are well-placed to be net water neutral by 2023. We have completed the majority of our CSR related projects we undertook this year related to COVID support, education and health, positively impacting over 2,000 beneficiaries. We are extremely proud of the role we play in ensuring a better world for our communities, which are so important for our business. Similarly, safety is one aspect that is paramount to us. The awards that we won for our safety culture, as I reported last time, demonstrate our efforts in this area. We continue to be rated highly on ESG with AA rating by MSCI and low risk categorization by Sustainalytics.
I would like to keep it short this time and let Pawan discuss the quarter results. As said earlier, we are very excited about our next phase of growth at Azure. We have traveled in our journey so far with a lot of hard work and learning accumulated by our teams. We continue to aggressively pursue digitalization and automation at our plants and construction sites. With large scale construction projects now operationalized, the next few years of growth firmly in hand with one of the largest and most value accretive pipelines in the industry, and with the addition of new businesses in the form of energy transition storage and Green Hydrogen, we truly think Azure is a top and compelling investment story. Handing it over to Pawan.
Thank you, Murali. I'm happy to report that we have exceeded upper end of our revenue guidance for this quarter as well, with revenues of $60.2 million or $58.8 million excluding rooftop as against the guidance range of $55.3 million-$58 million. As of December 31, 2021, we were operating 2,523 MW on a PPA or AC basis, which is 37% higher than what we were operating a year before. Our portfolio was at 7,425 MW at the end of the quarter, which includes signed PPAs for 2,933 MW and another 1,537 MW for which PPAs are awaited. We have updated our run rate metrics with 5,888 MW contracted capacity now in the portfolio.
That is 2,955 MW that will be in operation and 2,933 MW PPAs recently signed. For these contracted capacities, we expect the run rate revenue to be $581.2 million, with gross margin in the range of $530 million-$560 million and cash flow to equity of around $125 million-$200 million. On our rooftop sale update, we have closed transfer of 64 MW assets across seven SPVs subsequent to quarter end, and are in the process of completing transfer of balance 89 MW capacity, which is awaiting requisite approvals, and we expect to close by end of March 2022. This sale will enable freeing up of substantial management bandwidth in addition to recycling capital and discipline for future growth.
While these rooftop capacities are excluded from discussion on our portfolio megawatt number, we continue to consolidate rooftop financials till the transfer process is completed. On page 12, after adjusting for stock compensation expense reversal, our EBITDA has been $50 million or 29% increase against 27% increase in revenues from the same quarter in the prior year. Turning to JDA on page 13. Our JDA increased by 10% in line with our expectation we communicated earlier. We have made substantial progress on refinancing operating projects this year. Prime example is our largest project, Rajasthan 6, a 600 MW SECI project, which we fully refinanced in just over a month of commissioning at the lowest interest rate for any project in our portfolio at 7.2% per annum, which will be fixed for next 42 months.
Our overall average interest rate continues to see substantial decline this year from 9.2% at the last fiscal closing to 8.8% at this quarter end. The average further improves to 8.5% considering the refinancings already completed subsequent to the quarter end. These are permanent savings on the largest cost item in our P&L. Indicatively, 100 basis points reduction in our interest rate call on about $1.5 billion debt would release approximately $50 million annually in the system. This refinancing at lower coupon and fixed rate reflects strong credit profile of Azure Group. We now have about a gigawatt of our operating projects outside the bond portfolio, having at least 200 basis points less interest cost than before, and this will not change for three years on average.
This is a significant actualization that we bring amidst market concerns on interest cost. Our days sales outstanding, DSO, remains consistent and has held up very well even in the last two years of turmoil, thereby demonstrating the inherent strength of Azure strategy and portfolio. Our DSO as on December 31, 2021 were 113 days compared to 116 days as of March 31, 2021. These are industry-leading DSO numbers, which we believe will further improve substantially with the commissioning of our SECI projects and with favorable orders received in Karnataka from the regulator in GESCOM and CESCOM matters and from the Hon’ble High Court in the HESCOM matter. We are also hopeful of a favorable judgment very soon in Andhra Pradesh, where hearings have now been concluded and order is reserved.
On page 14, you can see that our EBITDA from operating assets increased by about 27% year-over-year, and that cash flow equity from operating assets rose about 58%, owing to incremental operating capacity that we added compared to the prior year. Net debt for operating assets were about $1.24 billion and EBITDA for last twelve months were about $205 million, resulting in a net debt EBITDA ratio for operating assets of 6.1x as on December 31, 2021. This important metric continues to see substantial improvement as megawatts we add stabilize and fully contribute to the EBITDA. Finally, looking at page 60, providing balance sheet information. We had about $115 million of cash and cash equivalent, and our net debt stood at approximately $1.48 billion.
We are very excited about the growth path ahead of us with strongest pipeline, strongest counterparty, and strongest credit to work with. We are thankful to our investors and shareholders for continuing to support this journey and helping us successfully raise $250 million of equity under the rights offering. We are always looking out for valuable and critical advice, suggestions, and dialogues from our stakeholders. Now I'll pass on to Ranjit to provide some commentary on the guidance.
Thanks, Pawan. We are happy to report that we have been able to achieve higher revenue compared to our guidance for this quarter while being in the range on our PLF guidance. As noted, despite supply-related challenges in our SECI 300 MW Rajasthan 9 project, we still expect to close this fiscal at higher end of our megawatt range provided earlier, i.e., 2,750 MW-2,955 MW. We have therefore narrowed our range at 2,855 MW-2,955 MW for fiscal year ending March 31, 2022. For fourth quarter fiscal 2022, we expect revenue to be between INR 5.1 billion and INR 5.2 billion or $68 million-$70 million at the exchange rate as on December 31, 2021, and the PLF to be between 22.5% and 23.5%.
For our initial guidance for the next fiscal, as of now, we do not expect that we would commission incremental megawatts in AC term by the end of March 31, 2023. While we expect revenues to be between INR 22 billion and INR 23 billion or $295.7 million-$309.2 million at the exchange rate as on December 31, 2021. On our long-term outlook at page 18, with 2.93 GW firmly in place with signed PPAs, we have updated our contracted portfolio for run rate gross margin and CFE, cash flow to equity. With this, we will be happy to take questions.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Justin Clare from Roth Capital Partners, LLC. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking our questions here. First off, I was wondering if you could talk about where you are in the process of signing the remaining PPAs for the 4 GW of projects that you have with SECI. For example, have PPAs been signed yet for any of the remaining megawatts? You know, what's your expectation here on timing?
Thanks for the question, Justin. There is a small 50 MW power purchase agreement that we expect to sign this week or the week after. Apart from that, SECI has made some progress on the next round, you know, next around 1,000 MW that we need to sign. We are hopeful that within the next quarter we will be able to sign the remaining. There were some other capacities, Justin, which were yet to be signed up, and I believe SECI is focusing on those first because, you know, our capacity, there is about 300-odd MW which is left to be signed up for November 2023 commissioning, whereas about 700 MW is left for commissioning in four fiscals now.
There is plenty of time for that to happen. The focus at the moment for SECI is to try and get the 300 MW odd which are needed to get to 1 MW for the November 2023 commissioning.
Okay, got it. That's helpful. For the 4 GW of projects with the SECI, you provided the timeline with the schedule. You have 600 MW scheduled for November 2023, with 1 GW in each subsequent year. What is the potential to bring these projects online earlier than that schedule? Could you potentially bring these online up to six months ahead of time? Or, what's the opportunity there?
Justin, unless and until the, you know, the projects that, I mean, the auctions that are taking place currently, you know, as long as those auctions continue at the pace that they are continuing at, and we continue to win like we have won over the last six months, we will not like to bring up the commissioning simply because of the fact that we have tariffs that are locked in. As you know, typically keeps on, you know, moderating over the years. With locked in power purchase agreements and locked in tariffs, we would like to bring these projects up on schedule. That is our current plan. However, as far as the development part is concerned, the development is going on full flow.
As we have mentioned in the past, our connectivity is already in place and we have started the process of trying to find the land and acquire the land even for projects that are going to commission in 2024 and 2025 and 2026. We will have the basics in place, but the actual commissioning, we will take a call closer to the time, depending upon what we have in hand for construction and how we see the change in the cost of modules.
Got it. Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Considering that, you know, how active do you expect to be in participating in new auctions over the next year or so? You know, how many megawatts could you potentially look to secure? Essentially, what is your capacity to maybe slot additional projects in, you know, either before or in between the other projects that you know already have PPAs for here?
That's a very important question, Justin. All along, right, in the last two years and 2.5 years, we have been very conservative in our outlook, and we have always said that we have the capability of doing between 800-1,200 MW a year. You know, it was on the back of the fact that we had this large portfolio to commission and we were still struggling through that part because of COVID and everything else.
Over this fiscal, we have gone and commissioned almost everything that was pending on our books, and that has given tremendous confidence to the team and to all of us in the company that we can go out and do these megawatts and we can do them well, we can do them on time, and we can do them on budget on such a large scale. We believe that year-on-year, our capability will increase from the 1,000 MW that we are able to do in the current fiscal. It will continue to increase, and we will challenge ourselves because it is not only, as you saw in our presentation, it's not only putting megawatts through our core business, but also we'll be looking to put megawatts behind Green Hydrogen, megawatts behind energy transition. We will take part in storage bids.
There are some storage bids coming up. It will be a combination of work that we will do, and we will deploy our resources and our dollars to where we think we can get the best deployment of capital.
Okay, great. Appreciate it. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Maheep Mandloi from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hey, good evening over there. Thanks for taking the questions here. Ranjit , thanks for the clarification on some of the completion and how much, you know, we can expect early, earlier as well. Maybe on that, you alluded a little bit on module supplies. Maybe if you could just talk more about the module supply and how is that shaping up in the next year and specifically with the BCD and the ALMM coming into effect. Does that change your assumptions around availability or pricing for modules?
Thanks for the question, Maheep. It's a very important question, and you know, the industry has been grappling with this question for the last 6 - 9 months. I must say that what has happened over the last 2 or 3 months has given us a lot of comfort and confidence actually on this situation, right? Because the PLI scheme, the first round of PLI scheme was awarded, you know, a couple of months back. I think it was in December, if I remember correctly. That was, you know, almost one third or one fourth of what had actually been tendered in the PLI tender. In the budget now the government has allocated more money. There is over 50 GW of PLI capacity, which has been sanctioned by the government.
You know, that gives us a lot of comfort that, you know, these most of the players that have signed for PLI are large corporate houses or already experienced manufacturers. Also, if you see that some of the companies that are in that list are actually going to set up ingot and wafer facilities also. As you know, even though you might win a 2,000 MW or 3,000 MW or 4,000 MW per annum solar module manufacturing capacity, and that is a possibility to set up that kind of capacity. However, when you set up an ingot and wafer facility, these facilities need to be a lot larger to be cost effective, to be cost competitive.
Therefore, even though on the face of it looks like we're gonna get as far as the ingot and wafer facilities are concerned, only 15,000 MW-20,000 MW per year, but it's likely going to be larger because the plants themselves are gonna be larger. We also know on the ground that many companies have already started putting up their solar module manufacturing facilities. Just like what we had envisaged when we spoke last quarter and last to last quarter, we do believe that the period from first of April to perhaps September or October or even December this year would be challenging. There will be some bottlenecks, perhaps, as these plants come up and get stabilized. Sooner than later, I believe that the situation will start to ease out, and next year should be much, much better in terms of availability.
We are lucky in that way that, you know, all our capacity that we are currently in, that we currently have under construction is, already spoken for. We have already got the last modules should have shipped today, the last few megawatts. We will have everything in country by middle of March. Then the next round of modules we'll be buying either later in the year or beginning of next year. Besides the fact that as part of our module manufacturing, you know, investment, which is required as part of the SECI manufacturing tender, we have options on the line that is being built, you know, by our partner. We are actually in a very comfortable position because we have a committed line coming up for us.
Besides that, we don't need any capacity till the next year.
Got it. I would presume ALMM would be dictating the prices. Should we still kind of assume that $0.60 per W as an assumption for the first SECI GW, the first tranche of the SECI 4 GW projects? Is that still a fair assumption, or do you expect that to change with the new policies coming in?
Maheep, I would let Murali answer this question. Though I have a view on this, but Murali is probably closer to this.
I think the first you know tranche of this capacity is due only in November of 2024, right? Sorry, November of 2023. Module procurement if they drop prices, we'll pick them up early, but if they don't, we have a lot of time. Despite ALMM and the other concerns, I think we should be able to you know if we wait it out, we'll get modules at a price which is comfortable. As Ranjit mentioned, a lot of capacity is coming in in terms of you know the upstream part of the value chain. When that kicks in, the prices have to drop. There is also a technology curve that's pushing costs down. Overall, we will wait and watch and see.
We are not in any rush to procure modules right now for this 4 GW.
Right. Okay. Just the last one from me. Just a small one. In terms of the PLF for the year, how should we think about that? Should we expect like a similar uplift to how we saw in FY 2021 to FY 2022 going into FY 2023? Or should we kind of just see more in line with 2022? Thanks.
I guess I can't remember off top of my mind what was the uplift from, you know, the last year to this year. In general, more and more of our capacity is coming in Rajasthan, so that will push up PLF. In general, you know, our newer projects are being overloaded to 100% or 150%. On a portfolio basis, once you factor in the legacy projects, you know, the PLF will go up. Yeah, there will be a gradual sort of creep up of PLF at least for next couple of years.
All right. Now back to the questions on...
Yeah. Maheep, just to, you know, on this PLF thing, right? We have already actualized our PLFs for the first three quarters and given a narrow band for quarter four. Yeah, you know, perhaps Vikas can be in touch with you to give you an exact number.
Absolutely. Yes. Will follow. Thanks.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Good evening, guys. My first question is, if I look at your, you know, portfolio revenue run rate that you've given out in this press release and compare it to what you know, gave out in the last quarter, you added about 2,333 MW more in terms of PPA signs. That seems to suggest there is a 33% PLF that you're expecting from this. Can you give some light on, you know, what really is driving this 33% PLF versus the 28% which was expected earlier?
Okay. You know, the exact number of 33, again, not top of mind, but let me explain the principle. We are moving into an era of bifacial modules from the, you know, the mono PERC which we have installed in the current 1.2 GW-1.3 GW that we have. Bifacial has an incremental yield, as you know. We are going to be going with the tracker-based systems, so that gives a yield uptick anywhere between 10%-15%, depending on which, you know, what is the latitude of installation. Currently, since we're focusing largely on Rajasthan, you know, we would expect a yield uptick purely from tracker in the range of 40%-50%, another 4%-5% from bifacial. Bifacial can actually give even higher results.
You know, we've seen results, which are even better than that. Overall,
What percentage is bifacial? 4%-5% you said.
It can be better than that as well. It depends on something known as an albedo factor. It depends on the quality of the reflectivity of the soil, right? If you have greater reflectivity, you get greater yield upticks. Combination of bifacial and a tracker, it's likely to push your yields up by almost 20%, right? But then the overloading may not be as high as 40% or 45%. It may be a slightly lower overload, maybe in the range of 35%-38%. Combination of all of these will bring your PLF to a greater number.
If I were to think of, you know, in Rajasthan, the base PLF on DC basis, what should that number be?
On fixed tilt mono PERC?
Yeah. Just mono PERC.
Yeah. Fixed tilt mono PERC. Currently our SECI 600 fixed tilt mono PERC is yielding about 1.8 million units per MW. Let me just tell you what that number means.
It's about 18.
20.5. Say 20 on average, right? It's 20.5 actually at the moment. Yeah. So with this, you know, then on top of this you whack in an overloading, you whack in a bifacial, you whack in a tracker, and this will start to go up to the numbers that you just asked.
That's okay. Thank you so much. My second question is, you said that you'll put pretty much install nothing in FY 2023. Why is there still a CapEx guidance of $600 million-$700 million for that period then?
Because, uh-
Sorry, go ahead, Puneet. Puneet, the reason why we have guidance is, of course, because, you know, we will be working on the first 1,000 MW of our SECI 4,000 MW tender. We have this 470 MW that we have won, which will need to be delivered in the first or the second quarter of the next fiscal. You know, a lot of work will actually be done in this quarter, right? In this fiscal. We will be constructing almost 1,500 MW to be commissioned in FY 2024. Because of the fact that, you know, that capacity is gonna come up in that year, a lot of the CapEx initially will be spent in FY 2023.
1,500 MW in FY 2024?
That's right. 470 MW that we spoke about, which has, you know, about half of it is wind and the 1,600 MW that we have already signed, 50 MW that we are signing this week or next week, and another 350 MW which we expect SECI to sign over the next quarter or so. We will have 1,470. You know, we will obviously see what we need to do or if we win anything specific on the storage side or on Green Energy Corridor transition side or whatever it is. We do expect to be busy, just not commissioning something in this fiscal, but next year we have a lot to commission.
Would you typically pay for modules after you commission it? It's an LC-based thing, so you still need to spend $600 million in FY 2023. It's just allocation of that money.
It's allocation of that money. Once we open an LC, we say that it is allocated. You know, also we will be acquiring land, and like we said, we are developing those 1,000 MW of wind. We are going to be busy. We are investing for the future. We will, you know, keep the wheels turning over the next year, too.
Right. From debt perspective, we should not be adding $600 million in FY 2023. It should still be added in 2024 only, right?
A large part of it will be added in 2024. Of course, for the 1,500 MW, because that also includes wind. Wind is slightly higher CapEx than solar.
Right.
you know, we will be adding a large part of the debt only the year after. Yes, you are absolutely right.
Understood. That's very helpful. Q4 for this year, all the projects are on track. There should not be any slippage effects.
We have given a guidance, Puneet, for 2855-2955.
Yeah.
We are hopeful that Rajasthan 9, which is the one which is on critical path, that we'll be able to commission it in this fiscal. If there is any spillover, it'll be a small quantity, or it could potentially be a small quantity on Rajasthan 9 into the first half of April or into April. Other than that, we are fairly confident that we will be able to meet this guidance.
Understood. That's very, very helpful. Last question, if I may. Any updates on Karnataka? You talked about it getting resolved, but the receivables are still high. What's the progress you're finding to in the Hon’ble High Court cases?
There has been a very, very positive development on all three distribution companies in case of Karnataka for us. Just to break it up, there are, you know, three distribution companies that are in question here. Two of them, which are GESCOM and CESCOM, where we have positive orders from APTEL. GESCOM has gone to Supreme Court, so we've had the first hearing and we are working on that process. CESCOM, we have asked them to adhere to the APTEL order, so the appellate order, and pay us. Both these distribution companies on their regular payments are up to date, so there is no DSO attributable to GESCOM and CESCOM on the regular payment. The DSO attributable to them is because of the court case.
We are paying a slightly lower revenue, and we have won the court case, so they have to pay us a differential revenue, right? That's the court case situation in case of GESCOM and CESCOM. They are good paymasters. They pay every month. Just that they're paying us less. That's where the court case is. On HESCOM, there is a delay in payment, right? They haven't paid us. Against HESCOM, we have gone to Hon’ble High Court , and Hon’ble High Court has found in our favor. That's almost, if I remember correctly, $10 million-$12 million of payment. We are cautiously optimistic that some or most of this money we'll be able to recover in this fiscal. The order is there. We have asked them to pay us.
We are working with them to schedule payments. We are hopeful.
Understood. That's very helpful. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions, on behalf of Azure Power, we conclude this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.