Suzlon Energy Ltd., one of the world’s biggest renewable energy companies, released Q1 results for financial year 2016-17 (FY17), which showed the company taking a loss of 2.6 billion rupees, partly due to Forex costs and the new accounting standards (IND AS).
The loss was exacerbated by the fall of the Indian rupee over the last few months, causing Suzlon to loose 900 million rupees in connection with the refinancing of $590 million in debt in April, 2016.
Suzlon CFO Kirti Vagadia, told Bloomberg that new accounting standards forced the company to report the entire 900-million-rupee Forex loss in Q1. Under previous standards, the loss would have been stretched out over the entire maturity of the debt.
The new Indian Accounting Standards essentially reclassified Suzlon’s debt restructuring costs as a liability, instead of a potential liability under previous rules, which added an additional 120 million rupees to the Forex loss, according to Vagadia.
Regardless of the additional FX loss, Suzlon reported a 16.5 billion rupees in revenue for Q1, and CEO J.P.Chalasani said that the future of the renewable energy sector in India is looking very good:
“The country witnessed record renewable energy installations in FY16 and the industry will surpass it by over 30% in the current fiscal. Combined, wind and solar capacity has surpassed hydro capacity and is only next to coal‐based capacity in India.”The company's report also highlighted the strong support for the renewable energy industry coming from the Indian government, which has set a target of 175 GW of renewables by the year 2022.
“India’s commitment at COP21 to achieve 40% renewables by 2030 will continue to fuel demand for clean energy”Headquartered in Pune, India, the 8000-employee company currently holds approximately 36% of the entire Indian wind turbine market.
