By Varun Aggarwal, CRN Network, August 12, 2009, 1600 hrs
Following its recent acquisition of Phoenixtec Power Company, Eaton Corporation is planning to launch photovoltaic inverters in India. The solar-powered inverters will be primarily targeted at telecom and FMCG companies who have substantial presence in rural markets where availability of power is a big issue.
“This would also be a great product for an SME or even a small office based in an upcountry location where there are a lot of power cuts. There are a lot of rural areas where companies have installed IT equipment but they lay unutilized largely due to shortage of power,” said Deepak Sharma, GM, SAARC & South East Asia, Electrical Group, Eaton Corporation. “Fortunately, most of India gets a lot of sun; therefore this product could help power the equipment. With the government focusing on e-learning programs, taking education to rural areas, this technology would be highly useful to that sector as well.”
The range of inverters will be available at a starting price of Rs 45,000, excluding the solar panel for a 2KW inverter.
Eaton plans to rope in systems integrators and solutions providers to sell this range. “We need to rope in partners who will go out and provide a complete solution including inverter, solar panel and installation. We will provide partners with components to assemble a tailor-made solution,” said Sharma.
The vendor has deputed a dedicated marketing team that will identify prospective customers, build a rapport and pass on contacts to partners. “We will work with major customers like Milk Cooperatives, ITC etc who have rural networks and educate them about the benefits of this product. Leads will be passed to our partners,” added Sharma.
Talking about the selection criterion for partners, Sharma revealed, “We would be tapping partners who are focused on UPS solutions in sectors that have a large rural presence like telecom, milk dairies, FMCG etc.”
Eaton plans to appoint exclusive partners in at least 30 locations. “Our aim is to have one partner per region. However, in some large markets we may have multiple partners. For instance, Rajasthan is a huge market for solar power and hence we will have multiple partners targeting specific opportunities,” he elaborated. |