India’s energy consumption will grow fastest among all major economies: Socomec

India’s energy consumption will grow fastest among all major economies: Socomec

Founded in 1922, Socomec is an independent, industrial group with a workforce of 3,600 experts spread over 28 subsidiaries in the world. The core business – the availability, control and safety of low voltage electrical networks serves customers’ power performance.

Sushil Virmani, MD, Socomec Innovative Power Solutions Pvt Ltd, tells us more. Excerpts from an interview:

DQ: How has been the energy journey so far? Pl. list some accomplishments.

Sushil Virmani: 2022 marks Socomec’s 100th anniversary, and reaching our centennial is a momentous occasion. We are incredibly proud of this achievement and humbled by the fact that only a few companies reach this major milestone. This wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support of countless people along the way. We owe our longevity to our valued customers, partners, employees, suppliers and communities with whom we have worked over the years.

In 1922, the history of the Socomec Group began in France, in Alsace, in the backyard of Joseph Siat, a textile engineer by training. A lot had happened during the journey with each generation that has consolidated the achievements, developed the power management expertise and increased the sphere of the company's business activities, which today has become a leading international group. As for the fundamentals, it remains constant: our core belief center around independence, innovation and responsibility.

DQ: There are several competitors. How have you remained different?

Sushil Virmani: As a global manufacturer having complete control over the product design and technological processes, Socomec is quite different from the general providers. We are constantly improving the fields of expertise offering our clients much more customized and appropriate solutions.

Backed by two European centers of excellence in France and Italy, the Group also benefits from 12 competitive production sites across the globe, including India. Since 2014, Socomec has been investing to bring its manufacturing facilities in line with Industry 4.0 standards. Beyond lean manufacturing, the digitalization of production means that we can ensure the delivery of a competitive offering with continuously improving service levels whilst also supporting the creation of more personalized products.

Socomec products are designed and developed by our talented team of in-house engineers with their real depth and wider knowledge in power electronics and digital controls. Our expertise in manufacturing combined with the use of only the highest quality components in the most efficient production and testing processes means that when it comes to reliability our products are unrivalled.

DQ: Socomec has been around for 23 years in India. How has the energy landscape changed?

Sushil Virmani: India is the fastest growing large economy in the world and the third largest consumer of energy. Over the last two decades, the country has experienced a dynamic transformation with rapid economic growth, urbanization underpinned by a burgeoning population. An energy source is a necessary element of socio-economic development.

India’s energy consumption will grow fastest among all major economies. Given the enormous potential of renewables in the country, coherent policy measures and an investor-friendly administration will be the key drivers for India to become a global leader in clean and green energy in the years to come.

Socomec, being a pioneer and specialist in low voltage (LV) power switching, monitoring and power conversion products, is committed to constantly innovating to improve the energy performance of electrical installations in data center, infrastructures, industrial, and commercial sites.

In many buildings, the availability of reliable electrical energy is essential for economic and security reasons. This requirement is now coupled with the need to improve the energy efficiency to achieve sustainable management of electrical installations and contributing to the clean and green energy mission of our country.

DQ: Are you doing anything special for the batteries in your products? How can you provide long life?

Sushil Virmani: The uptime of mission-critical applications is a major concern for IT or data center applications. Socomec has developed LI-ion battery UPS solutions that reduce the environmental impact from the design stage and throughout their entire life cycle. At the same time, it ensures permanent power supply to electrical infrastructure for business continuity, whilst reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by providing reliable back-up power availability in a reduced footprint, with extended lifetime and reduced maintenance.

It is the latest solution designed for helping environmental sustainability that is with no toxic materials, REACH/RoHS* compliant materials, no gas emissions, no risk of acid leakage. It provides higher power density and faster recharges than lead-acid systems. To maximize the power system’s availability and reduce the consequences of spurious battery failure, Li-ion is used.



* RoHS or restriction of hazardous substances and REACH or registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals.

Battery UPS is equipped with an embedded interactive control system that provides accurate and individual cell monitoring. Thanks to their high energy density; the system saves space and are lighter than lead-acid battery UPS. It allows a more effective and flexible use of the space, leaving free space for additional IT equipment or additional rooms to accommodate future power upgrades. Li-ion battery UPS are less sensitive to higher temperatures as it requires less cooling and hence reduces energy costs.

DQ: How are you doing in the renewable energy space?

Sushil Virmani: India has installed renewable energy capacity stands at more than 151.4 GW, which is about 39% of the country’s total capacity as on 31st December 2021. The installed solar energy capacity has stood at 49.5 GW. The country has set an ambitious target to achieve a capacity of 175 GW of renewable energy by the end of 2022, which further expands to 500 GW by 2030. This is the world's largest expansion plan in renewable energy.

Socomec is leveraging this growth momentum and developed a range of load break switches specially designed for photovoltaic applications. These devices perform on load making and breaking in all applications of photovoltaic circuits up to 1500 VDC, whether floating, earthed, or bipolar. The load break switches also remain operational under extreme conditions. In terms of use, Socomec load break switches can be useful in maintenance operations, for emergency switching (fire or electric shock) or in solar farms.

Already, we have supplied to many solar parks in the industry in association with solar inverter combiner box manufacturers, and have a solid double-digit market share. We have capacitated to produce the global technology product in India, adapting to our local customer needs to be self-reliant and pass on the cost benefits to our customers.

DQ: What are your offerings in the healthcare sector?

Sushil Virmani: When the world is going through difficult times because of the Covid-19 pandemic, strengthening our healthcare system was all the more important to step up support to universal health coverage and avoiding the disruption in critical healthcare. We have collaborated with many of the world’s leading healthcare organizations and pharmaceutical manufacturers globally, as well as in India, to provide our unrivalled support to respond to their power management challenges by providing fast delivery, proven expertise, and tailored solutions for all critical application projects.

Our service engineers were available 24/7 for testing, maintenance and repair needs even during lockdown period and received several appreciations from our customers for their responsible attitude and commitment towards customer satisfaction.

On the product-offering front, we have Masterys GP4 HC UPS from 10 to 160kVA with superior reliability dedicated for healthcare applications. It is based on power bricks available in different sizes to reach the final UPS power and the output current value covers the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and image guided therapy (IGT) current needs. It also comes with signaling box as an option, if the customer would like to have visual assistance to know the UPS real-time status.

Socomec also has range of automatic transfer switches are specifically adapted to enhance the reliability quotient in any LV electrical power distribution, that is a really a very important criteria for the hospital segment, wherein, key attributes like high MTBF, along with optimized design to ensure avoidance of single failure point, namely online motor replacement, as well as manual handle intervention, go a long way in giving assurance of high power availability, besides lowest MTTR.

The isolation function in our TSE range, in compliance to IEC 60947-3 further increases the safety factor, as downstream maintenance is possible to manage, while ensuring equipment safety.

DQ: What are your offerings in the data center space?

Sushil Virmani: The remarkable growth and the recent announcement of infrastructure status of data center segment look very promising. We are optimistic, as we see several global co-location and data center service providers showing a tremendous inclination towards the Indian data center market. This has certainly inspired SOCOMEC to innovate and evolve new product and service lines.

Recently, we have introduced MODULYS XL, a modular UPS based on 200 kW power modules for deployment within UPS units from 200 to 1200 kW – that can also be installed in parallel up to 4 units to reach 4.8MW. This development protects the load in online mode, whether responding to load increases or managing aspects of the lifecycle quickly and securely. MODULYS XL provides unprecedented availability and flexibility to address the demands of today’s highly critical applications.

Our 24/7 remote monitoring LINK-UPS and SoLive connected services to identify and carry out a range of remote fixes -- without being physically in front of the equipment. However, an on-site intervention is necessary. A Socomec engineer can be deployed immediately, along with the pre-diagnostic brief, and any spare parts that might be required.

Our automatic transfer switching equipment (ATSE), product-offering spans 40A to 6300A, to address critical application in Mains as well as Sub-Distribution, in addition to purpose-built range for precision AC, air handling, fan units, HVAC and chillers, as well as UPS and PDU source redundancy.

We have unique solutions for Busway TSE applications as well. In terms of meeting the energy monitoring needs for co-location data centers. We have on offer, the highly versatile, flexible Diris Digiware plug-and-play energy measurement, monitoring, and analysis range with host of communication options and accessories that ensure high accuracy even amidst low load conditions.

DQ: What are your future plans for India?

Sushil Virmani: Socomec, as an organization, has weathered the pandemic very well, and has emerged stronger with the agility, resilience and adaptability, earning us tremendous goodwill from our employees, customers, clients, and partners, who have enhanced our stand in the market.

Socomec, today, continues to expand its global engineering and manufacturing footprint, making SOCOMEC India a self-sustaining entity. By producing locally, we can reduce transit time and associated costs, improve delivery performance as well as environmental impact.

Local and regional production facilities also enable us to develop products and processes that are closer than ever to the needs of our customers, who serve those local markets.

Besides other promising business factors and the Indian Government’s constantly evolving investor-friendly policies, have encouraged Socomec to step up its investment with business expansion plans aiming to be a power management specialist in the space of power conversion, power switching, as well as in energy cost monitoring, for main, as well as distribution circuits.

Additionally, our AC, as well as DC versatile switching product range, would play a vital role in the deployment of power conversion, utility scale solar, besides energy storage applications, both in domestic as well as export sectors, facilitated by safe, secure, and ergonomic switching products, in manual as well as motorized executions. We are continuing to add or upgrade our product lines to meet our evolving customer needs.