In a recent interview with Renewable Watch, Praveen Kakulte, chief executive officer of POWERCON Group, discussed the company’s growth from a renewable asset management firm to an end-to-end solutions provider. He highlighted its OEM-independent approach, managing around 2.5 GW of assets with 1 GW under construction and a 0.5 GW development pipeline, and its digital oversight of around 40 GW globally. Kakulte also shared the success of the CORE initiative for renewable skill development, innovations in EPC and O&M using AI and predictive analytics, and the company’s plans to expand hybrid systems and high-performance renewable infrastructure.
Please provide a brief background and overview of POWERCON Group, key service offerings and current portfolio.
POWERCON started as a pure-play asset management firm for renewables, but over time, we’ve grown into an end-to-end solutions partner. Today, we support the full lifecycle, from project development and construction to life-time operations. In project development, we support clients with strategy, resource assessment, land acquisition, permits, and engineering. Our construction covers civil and HT electrical infrastructure, pooling substations, erection and commissioning works. Thereafter, we focus on asset management to ensure efficient performance, longevity and operational cost efficiency.
What makes us different is that we’re completely original equipment manufacturer (OEM) independent. That gives us the flexibility to work across technologies and stages. We currently manage around 2.5 GW of assets, have close to 1 GW under construction, and a development pipeline of 0.5 GW. Through our digital platform, we also oversee nearly 40 GW of assets globally, giving us deep insight into how renewable projects perform in real-world conditions.
What are the key industry highlights of POWERCON Group from the past year?
It’s been a big year for us. One of the most meaningful milestones was our partnership with YCM Open University. Through our CORE initiative, we’re now offering certificate, diploma and advance diploma level programmes in wind and solar, making technical education in renewables more accessible than ever. Our three month residential CORE program, which combines classroom learning, fieldwork, and data analytics, has gained real traction. Importantly, the capacity building of India’s renewable energy sector is being augmented with industry-ready workforce.
It’s not just fresh graduates signing up; companies like Renew Power, Aditya Birla, Tata Power and SJVN are now sending their teams for training. What began as an internal training setup has grown into a fully independent, not-for-profit academy that’s standing strong on its own.
What are the current cost trends of solar, wind projects? What are the future expectations?
Over the past decade, solar capital costs have fallen sharply to nearly 20–30 per cent of their earlier levels, making it one of the most cost-effective renewable options. Wind hasn’t experienced such steep declines but has maintained stable costs, supported by localisation, digitisation, and technology advancements.
Land acquisition, however, is emerging as a growing cost factor, with landowners in resource-rich regions demanding higher compensation, signalling stronger local participation but also requiring smarter planning to maintain financial viability.
Currently, solar projects cost about Rs 45 million per MW and wind about Rs 90 million per MW. Looking ahead, both solar and onshore wind are expected to become even more cost-competitive, though intermittency remains a challenge. Solar provides only 5.5–6 full sunshine hours a day, while wind runs round the clock, with seasonal variations. This is driving the shift to hybrid solutions combining solar, wind, and battery storage to deliver firm, dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE).
Our Energy Studio platform is central to making that work, optimising performance and helping turn unpredictable inputs into reliable output ensuring greater monetary returns.
What are the biggest operational and policy challenges facing the wind energy sector today, and how is your company navigating them? What is your outlook on offshore wind market in India?
The wind sector in India is facing a few persistent challenges. Transmission constraints and land acquisition continue to slow things down on the ground. Add to that the increasing reliance on imported tech and digital tools, and cybersecurity is now a real operational risk.
At POWERCON, we tackle this head-on with a mix of strong local partnerships, technical depth, and robust digital security protocols. We’ve built strong digital security protocols into our operations to protect critical infrastructure and ensure system resilience as we scale. Our multibrand volume approach gives us flexibility across OEMs, helping us resolve issues faster and scale more efficiently.
As for offshore Wind, it’s capital-heavy, nearly double the cost of onshore, but the potential is significant. India has extracted merely 5 per cent of the total onshore wind potential that is around 52 GWs of installations from the total wind potential of 1,163 GWs at 150 m height. Further, offshore on Gujarat and Tamil Nadu coasts together is less than 71 GWs which need not be a focus area as of now.
How has the demand for advanced asset optimisation evolved in recent years?
Driven by the rapid growth of solar and wind installations and the need for more reliable, efficient, and firm power output, asset optimisation has become the life-line. As India targets 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030, the challenge to build new infrastructure is smaller compared to the one for managing it effectively, especially with limited skilled manpower and fragmented infrastructure.
At POWERCON, we tackle this through our Energy Studio platform (digital), which gives us reasonable control over the uncontrollable. Given the variable nature of wind and solar, asset control is no longer optional; it’s a necessity. The platform helps real-time energy management, delivering FDRE.
With the increasing complexity of multi-asset and multi-brand operations, our asset management model and advanced software solutions offer the adaptability needed to work across different turbine technologies and site conditions. As India pushes for utility-scale firm energy output, these digital optimisation tools are becoming indispensable in meeting both operational and policy goals for the country’s energy future.
Can you share any recent innovations in your EPC or O&M services that have significantly improved efficiency or cost savings?
One of our standout innovations has been the digital transformation of both our engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) and operation and maintenance (O&M) services, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), advanced monitoring, and predictive analytics. In EPC, we’ve taken construction management to the next level with AI-driven systems that track everything from worker presence and safety compliance to project progress—all in real time. With drone imaging and AI surveillance, we can monitor vast areas, often 400 acres or more, ensuring synchronised execution and better safety across the board.
This tech-driven approach has also really paid off. We’ve boosted our installation rate for multi-MW turbines from the industry average of 2–2.5 to 3–3.5 turbines per month per team. This leap in efficiency has translated to significant cost savings by driving down per-turbine installation costs.
On the O&M side, our Energy Studio platform acts as a remote command & control center, allowing us to resolve faults and optimise performance without needing to be always onsite. The new renewable energy management system – ‘FarSight’ recently launched by our partner ‘BaxEnergy’ is utmost innovative and comprehensive providing full freedom to the end user for configuration/ conceptual visualisation. It uses neural networks to predict turbine failures, like a “fortune teller” for asset health, helping us reduce downtime and O&M costs even further. We are also developing agentic AI chatbot to support onsite O&M team to get faster resolutions of faults.
With the rise of green hydrogen, is POWERCON looking at integrating hydrogen infrastructure into its EPC or O&M services?
At POWERCON, we see renewable energy and green hydrogen as complementary to serve a common cause of decarbonisation; but, they are not interchangeable. While renewables like wind and solar focus on power generation, green hydrogen is aimed more at fuelling clean mobility solutions, especially for heavy vehicles.
We’re closely monitoring developments, and as the sector matures, we will serve opportunities within the clean tech space in the future.
What are POWERCON Group’s future plans and targets? How does the company plan to achieve these?
POWERCON Group’s roadmap is anchored on becoming a global leader in renewable energy asset construction and management, guided by three strategic pillars: scale, innovation, and integration. In India, we’re expanding our project development, construction and O&M footprint across wind and solar, with a sharp focus on performance and reliability. Internationally, we’re strengthening our capabilities in remote asset management, where we already have a growing presence. We also see strong potential in hybrid systems, especially as India enhances its clean energy mix.
At the core of our operations is a production-centric approach that treats wind farms and solar parks as high-performance power factories, not just maintenance sites. Our use of condition-based maintenance, instead of fixed schedules, helps maximise uptime, enhance energy output, and reduce O&M costs by 15–20 per cent. This also extends asset life and lowers the levelised cost of energy.
As next-generation turbines and technologies emerge, we’re integrating our construction and development strengths to ensure our partners are future-ready, equipped to manage greater capacities with higher efficiency and reliability.
