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spk00: Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Azure Power Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2021 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 touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikas Bansal from Azure Power. Thank you and over to yourself.
spk05: Thank you and good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. On Tuesday evening, the company issued a press release announcing results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2021 and in March 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 Agarwal, CFO. Ranjit will start the call by going through recent key highlights, Murali will then follow up with an update on our project under construction, technological innovation, and an industry update. Pawan will then provide an update on the quarter with additional discussion on performance of the quarter. And then we will wrap up the call with Ranjit updating FI 22 guidance and providing quarter one FI 22 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. These are risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. So we encourage you to review the press release we furnished in our form 6K 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 measure And these reconciliations are also available on our website in the press release and presentation materials and annual report. It is now my pleasure to hand it over to Ranjit. Thank you, Vikas. And a very good morning, everyone. I would like to start today's call offering condolences to everyone impacted by COVID-19. We faced the pandemic's ugliest phase in India during April and May 2021, when almost no family was left untouched in some way or the other by COVID. Good part is that we are now seeing daily infections recede, and our vaccination drive has picked up pace with over 260 million doses administered till date. At Azure, we have stood by our employees and stakeholders, in the fight against the pandemic and have been following all COVID protocols with Vega. During the second wave, we undertook a number of initiatives to supplement the medical infrastructure in and around the areas we operate. We donated 30-plus oxygen concentrators to healthcare facilities in the states of Rajasthan, UP, Karnataka, and other states, supplied 30 BiPAP machines to a healthcare facility at Bikaner, supplied oximeters, PPE kits, masks, and other essential medical items to a number of facilities as per their requirement. Within the company, to help our team members, we strengthened our preparedness to respond to medical emergencies faced by our employees or their family members by implementing a cohort-based support group, procurement of 15 oxygen cylinders distributed across our various sites, and purchasing a number of oxygen concentrators for our own use placed at strategic locations. We continue to retain support of a qualified medical practitioner for any medical advice to our employees and their family members. We have also implemented a company-subsidized term insurance scheme to support the economic needs of our families in case of any unfortunate event. I am especially proud of the cohort-based group wherein we created a pyramid of contacts, thereby reaching out to every team member every day to track their and their family's health, providing help where needed. The way the team came together on several occasions to help a team member in his or her hour of need was exemplary and truly demonstrated the strength of Azure. Sustainability and ESG are key to the success of our business at Azure. We highlighted our ISO 45001 certification last quarter, which demonstrates Azure's focus on occupational health and safety and validates additional efforts we put in to make our workplaces safe for our team members and contractors. In December, MSCI announced the leading ESG rating agency, rated Azure Power as AA for ESG, which places us in the top quarter of all global utilities they cover and probably amongst the highest ratings among our peers in the country. We continue to strive towards improving further on this rating. I'm happy to report that we have entered into an agreement to sell our rooftop portfolio to Radiance Renewables for an enterprise value of approximately US$73 million. This is the first ever asset sale in Azure Power's history and signifies our commitment towards capital discipline while recycling capital into higher return committed projects. Continuing with this philosophy, I'm happy to report that Azure is seeking to increase size of our addressable market by foraying into other areas of renewable energy, especially wind and solar-wind hybrid projects. We have participated in a couple of auctions already and will look to have something more concrete sooner than later. As the share of renewable energy in the grid increases, we realize that the business will move towards more dispatchable energy. As the industry moves towards providing firm power to the grid, wind and storage will be two important technology additions we have to plan for our portfolio. I had mentioned in my previous remarks how green hydrogen and plummeting storage costs have the potential to disrupt our industry. We are in the process of critically examining our business and growth strategy as we go along our endeavor to be on the right side of the evolving renewable industry landscape. We are continuously evaluating, deploying new techniques and technology at our projects to improve returns. We assure our valued investors that we will continue to be disciplined in our approach and we'll keep all of you posted as we take steps in this territory. Today, we have 20% more megawatts operating than we did at the same time last year, excluding the rooftop portfolio. Our operating assets have performed well, and not only have we been able to continue collecting revenue during this pandemic, we even improved our collections with our DSO at 116 days at the end of the quarter compared to 122 days at the same time last year. We have controlled our costs and our cash GNA, excluding stock compensation expenses and one-time expenses in the previous period, increased marginally by 8% from the same quarter last year. We had promised to reduce our cash GNA expenses by 10% in 2020. fiscal year 21 versus fiscal year 20, and I'm happy to report that we have reported a reduction of 26% in G&A from previous period, excluding the impact of stock acquisition rights. Growth in our actions to improve returns have resulted in a 23% year-on-year increase in EBITDA from operating assets. and a 75% increase in cash flow to equity from operating assets. Since we started reporting CFE, we have seen a steady improvement in this metric due to our focus on sharing our assets, CapEx infusion in operating assets, reducing our costs, and collection of long outstanding dues. On the flip side, despite significant progress made prior to the second wave of COVID towards signing Papache's agreements on our four gigawatts, for which we have a letter of award but no PPAs, we have not much to report yet. We still remain optimistic that we will have positive news to deliver shortly as there is a definite movement towards the finish line. In spite of the pandemic, peak power demand recovery is underway, which would encourage DISCOMs to invest in buying power for their future needs. It may be noted that there is a backlog of 15 to 20 gigawatt awarded capacity, which is awaiting PSA to be tied up with DISCOMs. TEKI has been supportive by not coming out with any new solar ISTS bid till this backlog is cleared. As the second wave has eased, we have seen renewed interest in buying power from discounts. We have also seen global polysilicon prices escalate in the recent past, and it has impacted our supplies and our commissioning timelines. We continue to monitor the situation and are hopeful that the recent increase in prices is only temporary. The government continues to support the renewable energy sector, Honorable Prime Minister recently reiterated Government of India's commitment to climate actions at the G7 summit, and he has been the driving force behind India's vision of 450 gigawatts renewable energy operational by 2030. Apart from the push on setting up generation assets, the government has been talking about promoting make in India. There has been talk of measures to encourage solar cell and solar panel manufacturing domestically. Two important measures were announced in the last few weeks to enable local manufacturing industry. First was the imposition of basic custom duty from 1st April 2022 with 40% on modules and 25% on cells. The other was the notification of the ALM list, which is the approved list of models and manufacturers. Any project auctioned after April 10, 2021 will necessarily have to buy solar panels that appear on ALMM list. Our current pipeline will continue to enjoy the benefit of pass-through since our projects were auctioned before the imposition of both these notifications. Further, as per a recent judgment by the Honorable Supreme Court of India, All transmission lines in certain regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat have been asked to be converted from overhead wires to underground. We believe this would be cost neutral to us as we should be allowed to pass through of the same if we incur the cost. Given the turmoil of the last year, FY21, fiscal year 21, has been all about efficiency and prudence. We have invested in our operating projects to improve generation and living facilities of our team members at site. We are moving rapidly to deploy the latest bifacial modules and trackers to increase efficiency of insulation capture on our projects which are going into construction. If I look back at this difficult year, some of our achievements are that we were able to keep operating through the various lockdowns and pandemic surges. the work we were able to do to support our teams and our communities, that we were able to largely protect returns on our under-construction projects through COVID-induced delays. The sale of the rooftop assets and the patience we have shown by staying away from the temptation of bidding aggressively through the year have been huge successes and very satisfying. With almost two years behind me, I look forward to the coming fiscal with great hope and optimism. We believe in waiting for the right opportunity to earn our shareholders a return higher than our cost of capital and the philosophy of building a sustainable business rather than simply chase scale. 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 our business. With that, I would like to turn it over to Moruli.
spk06: Thank you, Ranjit. On page five, we provide an update on our projects under construction. Second wave of COVID at its peak, severely impacting our construction activities, not only disrupting the supply chain, but also impacting several of our sites. The high local demand for solar modules in the past several months or so in China, coupled with the rising yuan and rising raw material costs, have resulted in module suppliers trying to renegotiate their contracted price and delivery commitments despite signed supply contracts. The module prices for new orders are at levels that were seen several years ago. We had anticipated earlier that by fiscal year end in our Rajasthan 600 megawatt project, we would operationalize 450 megawatt and the final 150 megawatt finished by May. However, As of today, we have finished 300 megawatts in FY 2021, and 300 megawatts have been pushed by another quarter due to the second COVID-related challenges. Thanks to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy notification, however, granting extension to all projects with commissioning due date on or after 1 April 2021, we don't expect to incur any penalties for delays. Project construction work in SM2 has picked up after poor weather and COVID-related delays. However, the second wave of COVID came in strongly, and it has again taken a hit. After the initial 25 megawatts commissioned, we commissioned another 12.5 megawatt of project in May and expect another 12.5 to be done shortly. The entire project is expected to be fully commissioned by the end of the calendar year, as we are already in the midst of the monsoon season now. We have sought a commissioning date extension from the regulator and procurer getting extension till the end of this financial year, this fiscal year, sorry, this calendar year, I'm sorry. As mentioned in the past, we have made several incremental improvements in operations and construction practices to squeeze out better returns. Our recently operationalized analytics platform has been instrumental in identifying faults quicker, leading to lower downtime at the string level. Our ability to target, determine, and rectify electrical losses during operations have also been enhanced considerably. On the construction side, we are installing tracker-based systems in one of our projects under construction to combat the impact of increased panel prices. We have provided some highlights of our ESG accomplishments on page six. As Ranjit mentioned earlier, we have got a strong AA rating from MSCI for ESG and obtained the ISO 45001 certification, which verifies that Azure Power provides a safe and healthy workplace. Our carbon-free generation has avoided about 3 million tons of CO2 equivalent this fiscal, bringing the total to 9.5 million tons equivalent since inception. We remain net carbon neutral. We have been focusing on our water neutrality, having installed 84 groundwater recharge structures across 15 sites this fiscal. Another environmental focus this year is safe disposal, even recycling wherever possible, of damaged modules. and we have made very good progress this fiscal year with 555 tons of modules disposed. We also remain actively engaged with the communities in which we operate with support towards medical and health facilities and active response on the pandemic front. On the governance side, we are already complying with the World Bank Equator principles and governance standards of NYSE, SEC, and SGX. Majority of our directors on the board are independent and with increased gender diversity. During the fiscal, we introduced policies for human rights and equal employment opportunity, along with diversity and inclusion, which highlights our efforts towards upholding the highest governance standards. We are continuously striving to implement best practices to enhance our sustainability. Looking at industry and regulatory updates on page seven, there is a buildup of allocated solar projects with letters of award, but without power purchase agreements at the moment. In the last couple of quarters, the distribution companies have not been signing PSAs, and this has been accentuated by the second COVID wave and falling tariffs. However, our discipline has protected us from entering at the recently without low tariffs. We expect developers may find it difficult to build projects at the recently without low tariffs, given the rise in input costs coupled with COVID-related delays. The good news is that Overall power demand in India is expected to grow now as the country emerges from the second wave. With the challenges in supplies and pricing, we do expect that there should be an increase in tariffs compared to the ones discovered in the recent past. However, we've all been surprised and we shall see how tariffs pan out. We have seen that there have been periods of intense competition followed by moderation. We are pursuing newer opportunities such as wind and hybrid technologies and we assure that we shall only bid for projects at commercially viable tariffs. We continue to believe that we would be able to obtain the four gigawatt PTAs at value accretive tariffs, which would add to our contracted pipeline and provide returns above the cost of capital. With that, I will turn it over to Pawan to discuss the quarterly results. Thank you. Thank you, Muzli. Moving on to case nine. In 2021, we were operating 1,990 megawatts on a PPA or AC basis, which is 20% higher than what we were operating a year before. Our portfolio of 6,955 megawatts remains stable from the previous quarter, excluding rooftop portfolio. Since our last update, we have entered into definitive agreements to sell our rooftop portfolio and have therefore excluded these assets from our portfolio. Our construction costs have continued to fall in FY21 and were about 19% lower than the previous year. Turning on to page nine, sorry, page 10, looking at the quarter, our revenues continue to increase as we construct more projects, some of which have been affected by the second wave of COVID and supply-related challenges on module front, as noted by Murli. After adjusting for stock compensation expenses, our EBITDA has been 44.3 million, or 18% higher, against 16% increase in revenues from the same quarter in the prior year. Turning to G&A on page 11, save for stock appreciation rights, or SAR, which added about 18 million to G&A for the year. our cash G&A were below internal expectations. We remained very focused on reducing our costs as we had outlined earlier this year and are pleased to report that our G&A was 26% lower than the prior year. When looking out into FY22, we expect that cash G&A will rise about 10% from FY21 level, primarily reflecting inflation and an increase in megawatts in operation. We are progressing well on refinancing of our about $185 million long-term debt facilities outside the green bond pool, as well as $500 million green bond RG1. We expect substantial savings in interest costs once these refinancings are completed. Turning to stock compensation expenses, as the share price rises, our stock compensation expenses will rise, including G&A. to help with modeling the impact of SAR expenses on our G&A is directly linked to the share price. For fourth quarter 21, we had a reversal in the expense of around 7.7 million, primarily reflecting reduction in share price from $40.77 as of 31st March 2020 to $27.19 as of 31st March 2021. Going forward, for every $1 change in stock price above and below our previous quarter's close, will have about 800,000 impact, both positive and negative. We are particularly proud of our ability to improve our DSO despite the challenges this year. Our four-quarter 21 DSO was 116 days, which is better than 120 days about a year ago. We continue to make progress in collecting our payments and believe there will be further improvement in the future with commissioning of projects with high credit-worthy counterparty this year. On page 12, you can see that EBITDA from operating assets increased about 18% year on year, and that cash flow equity from operating assets rose about 55%. Net debt for operating assets was about 1.13 billion, and EBITDA for the last 12 months was about 179 million, resulting in net debt to EBITDA ratio for operating assets to 6.3x, which is better than last year's ratio of 6.6x. Finally, looking at page 13, providing balance sheet information, we had about 152 million of cash and cash equivalents and our net debt stood at approximately 1.19 billion. As a reminder, for those that are calculating our debt ratios, the hedging assets of 75 million included in other assets on our balance sheet should be netted against our total debt as this is directly linked to the foreign exchange hedge we put in place related to our green bonds. Now, I pass on to Ranjit to provide some commentary on our guidance.
spk05: Thank you, Pavan. In February 2021, when we had reiterated our revised guidance for fiscal year 21, I had mentioned the caveats of timely commissioning, normal weather and no curtailment. We are 1.5% lower on our Q4 revenue and 0.5% lower on our fiscal year 21 revenue compared to our projected number, primarily reflecting lower insulation due to weather conditions. Even though we have just started on the recovery path from the second wave, as of now, we reiterate our numbers for the current fiscal, but we'll keep the market posted in our coming updates. For the first quarter fiscal 22, we expect revenue to be between INR 4,100 and 4,300 million and the PLF to be between 23% to 24%. With this, we will be happy to take questions.
spk00: Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone 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 will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 at this time. First question is from the line of Philip Shen from Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one's on the Secchi 4 gigawatts. I know you gave some color in your prepared remarks and in your release. I was wondering if you might have a better sense for when the first tranche might get placed. What's the timing of when the agreement could be signed there? Thanks.
spk05: Thanks, Phil, for the question. So like you mentioned, there is some progress over the last two, three weeks. In fact, a couple of hearings that were scheduled in the regulatory commission actually happened over the last couple of weeks. And we hear that those hearings went well. So we are hopeful that, you know, we are in the middle of June, so we are hopeful that within the next four weeks, we should, you know, get something signed off the first trance. If not the whole thing, at least the signings will begin within the next four weeks is what we are told by SECI.
spk02: Great, Ranjit. Thanks. And have they, by chance, been able to... share with you preliminarily how much lower the tariffs could come down by or could be. Do you think you'll be 25% below where you thought? I think you expect the tariffs to come down lower, but how much lower do you think they could be? Thanks.
spk05: Like we have said in the past that the tariffs have to make sense for us. Otherwise, we will not sign. This is an option which is available to us. And we can hold on to the option for more time. There is no hurry really for us to go out and sign. Because like we have mentioned and we have spoken in the past that tariffs that have been discovered in the last three or four months or six months have been super competitive. And, you know, we don't believe that we would have liked to participate in the market at those tariffs. And our difference has actually been shown, right, because the markets have moved in the wrong direction as far as those tariffs are concerned. And we had the option at some point to look at the tariffs that were discovered and sign power purchase agreements close to those tariffs. And we had declined at that point saying that those tariffs are not appropriate in our view and we would rather wait. for the correct tariffs. So at the moment, what is being discussed is maybe a 10-15% kind of a reduction from our tariffs, but the final numbers will be known only when we get the regulatory approvals and sign the power of sale agreements with the distribution companies. But rest assured that we have declined in the past to sign when the tariffs did not make sense, and we will continue to do that until the tariffs make sense for us.
spk02: Great. Thank you for that call, Ranjit. And then on The call earlier, you mentioned the potential to get into wind and storage. I was wondering if you might be able to share a little bit more on the timing of when something could be announced and what the structure of that opportunity might look like. Thanks.
spk05: Phil, that's a very important question and thanks for asking because wind and wind hybrid, currently what is happening is that there are piecemeal, stand-alone, very small storage tenders which are more exploratory in nature than commercial in nature. So we have looked at some of them. We have not yet taken part in any of those options because they're very small and exploratory, like I said. However, as far as wind and solar-wind hybrid projects are concerned, they are well-established. You know, wind has been around in India for more than 25 years. So therefore, it's a well-established market. And Morley and I have the experience of building more than one gigawatt of wind in our previous life. So therefore, you know, we are very, very comfortable with the wind auctions and wind projects and wind construction and wind operations. So we have taken part in an auction for wind and an auction for solar-wind hybrid in the last six months. And there are a couple of auctions coming up over the next, we understand, over the next four to six weeks. So we will take part in those auctions. And again, if we find the right tariffs, We will certainly, you know, like to win one of those auctions, win both those auctions, and build out, you know, the first wind or wind solar hybrid projects for Azure.
spk02: Great. One last question, if I may, as it relates to, I think, trackers. You mentioned that you used trackers recently to offset the panel price increases there. Looking ahead, do you expect trackers to be – first of all, which trackers did you use? And then also, do you expect the share of trackers in your projects to increase meaningfully? And if so, could it be something like 50% of your installations, or do you think it stays at a meaningful small percentage? Thanks.
spk06: Do you want me to take that? Yes, please. Correct. So, you know, every project has to be evaluated at its merit, right? So currently, given the panel prices, there is merit in considering tracker. So we are doing that for one of our projects, as mentioned. Depending on the tariff, depending on the location, depending on several other inputs, each project will be evaluated to determine whether a tracker-based system makes sense or the traditional fixed system makes sense. and on that basis we will decide. So it will be hard for us to sort of peg a percentage for the future. In terms of which tracker, I think we had this conversation in the past as well where we are looking at a range of companies. So we are looking at three different companies, and each of them is – is getting some portion of the contract going ahead. And these are the big names which are there. One of them is American, one of them is Chinese, one of them is Indian.
spk02: Okay, great. Thanks for the caller. I'll pass it on.
spk00: Thank you. Reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Maheep Manloy from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
spk04: Hey, hello, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Reggie, maybe one clarification on the FI 2022 guidance of 17.9 to 18.9 billion rupees of revenues. Could you clarify whether that includes rooftop or not? Because I think in the April press release, you had reduced it by around 700 million rupees. So that's a clarification on that.
spk05: So, in the current numbers, we have included... You're talking about the 17,900 and 18,900 that we have mentioned, right? Yeah, that's right, yeah.
spk04: 17, 200 and 18, 200 in the April press release when you announced the sale of the rooftop portfolio.
spk05: Robin, would you be able to take this?
spk06: Sure, sure, sure. The next year guidance, that excludes rooftop revenues. If I understood your question correctly.
spk04: 700 million of higher increased revenues versus the cadence from April. I just want to clarify that. That's a result of just more projects coming online earlier than expected or something else on that?
spk06: Yeah. So if you also see what we have qualified in R60 that these projects, because of the role of COVID-19, projects are getting slightly delayed and of course MNRE is also considering extension. So as we stand today, we are not in a position to kind of ascertain with a reasonable certainty what exactly will be the maximum commission of the project. So that is the reason we have very carefully qualified in our 6K that we will be assessing how the commissioning happens and possibly maybe in the next quarter of this process we will be able to tell if we need to modify this annual guidance.
spk04: Got it. All right. Yeah, and I'll follow up in detail later on with you on that. And maybe just another question from my side is just looking at the capex for a new solar project in this quarter. it seems pretty low compared to what we had in the last quarter and last year, at least 10% lower by May. How do you expect that to trend for the rest of the projects under construction, just given model prices have increased awfully? Do you expect any risks to it, any cancellations from the model suppliers, anything like that impacting the CapEx in the near term?
spk06: So, you know, very good question. So we have negotiated module supply agreements and signed supply contracts with several manufacturers and suppliers. Some of them are being discussed and negotiated because there has been a rise in input costs, and we understand that. And this is work in progress. In some cases, we have sort of agreed to a marginal increase. In some cases, the increase is a little more than marginal, so those are still under discussion. Having said all of this, if we were to build a new project today, I'm not talking about the projects which are already under construction, which we have spoken of in this release, but any new bid that I go for, if I, for a new bid, take today's panel prices, then the project cost would go up by about 10%. However, that's not something that would impact us directly for the projects under construction because we have contracts signed at lower panel prices and there is a little bit of discussion around those very specific numbers.
spk04: Right, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. And then maybe just like one high-level question here and maybe Ranjit, this is for you. We've seen a couple of assets exchange hands recently in the market and I think even today, international developer within an operation was taken private. So I guess to that, keeping that in mind, are you seeing any interest in privatization or any interest from other entities? Just given the valuation in the equity markets doesn't seem to reflect the opportunity ahead of you, especially in my opinion, it doesn't even include the four gigawatts of projects, which as I said, the PPS could be negotiated in the next month or so.
spk05: This is a very difficult question to answer. At the moment, there is no talk that we have heard between shareholders about taking the company private. And we have seen the share price in the last few months reflect what was perhaps closer to the true value of the company. And at the moment, there has been a pullback in the wider clean energy market and sustainable stocks. So I think this is perhaps a temporary, I believe, a temporary phenomena. And we will see the share price reflect the true value sooner than later. I am more confident of that today than I was about a year back. Today, if you see our liquidity, right? I mean, we are trading. When we joined the company, we were trading 10,000 shares a day. Today, we are trading over 300,000 shares a day. Yesterday, we traded over half a million shares. So, you know, with that kind of liquidity, there does come a little bit of volatility. But the trend, I believe, is going to be positive. And, you know, public markets in the U.S. are a brilliant place, in my opinion. And we hope to stay public.
spk04: All right. Thanks for taking the questions.
spk00: Thank you. Participants, to ask a question, you may press star and 1. The next question is from the line of Puneet from HSBC. Please go ahead.
spk06: Yeah, thank you so much, Sam. Good evening, everybody. My first question is with respect to the overall cost. In your presentation, you talk about, you know, your cost on a DC basis cost falling to 39 cents in FY21 from 49 cents in FY20. Where do you think will these costs go for FY22? Again, when you say these costs, you're talking about Azure-specific projects, right? Yes, yes. It would trend up perhaps by a few percent, not much. But again, these are early days because these projects are under construction, and this is a constant negotiation and discussion with our suppliers. So, you know, I can't predict what might happen four weeks or eight weeks from now. That would be speculative. But given where we are, because we've already signed a lot of our contracts, there is some renegotiation happening. On that basis, we could probably estimate a few percent increase. But again, I don't know what will happen eight months down or 12 months down. If I were to assume the current module prices, then where should these trend be? If you were to look at the current module prices and you go for a new project with, you know, a lot of other input costs have also increased. So if you look at all of that, one would reckon about a 10% increase, as I mentioned. $39 could become $43.43. Yeah, as I said, 10%. But again, you know, the important number here, you know, cost per megawatt is one metric. Perhaps the more relevant metric would be cost per million units, right? Because if you are introducing trackers, if you're using other newer technology to improve yield, then the amount of energy generated... per dollar of investment is probably more relevant as opposed to amount of megawatts installed. So that may come into consideration once you deploy better and newer technologies. And this is in the 10% year including the cost of categorization and better module solutions? No, so that is, you know, it's very difficult. There are so many moving parts in our project also. depending on the choice of tracker, depending on the choice of module, the choice of technology of the module itself. So all of them will impact the cost. So the endeavor is to get the lowest cost of energy as opposed to the lowest capex per megawatt. What I have indicated in terms of 10% is, you know, like for like, all else being equal, no change in technology, no change in anything, purely on account of cost increase on like-for-like items. However, if you go for better technology, you may pay more, but you might get better yields, right? So that's a constant evaluation we do. How much of the KTX was capitalized in the current year? Yeah, so if you look at our balance sheet slide, The P&D has gone up from 95, 993 million INR to 108, 847 million INR. So that delta is something that has been capitalized, if you compare March 20 versus March 21. Yes, and if I look at your data, it's roughly 18 billion rupees, but what is being commissioned is probably half that number. Right, because commissioning, typically we have to incur a lot of cost which remains in CWIP. And then we commission. So even if it is in CWIP, it is capitalized, right? So that is the way we are reporting for us. So 13.5 billion rupees is the ballpark number where you would have capitalized this year. Existing for all decades. Sorry, 13 and a half. 13 and a half billion rupees would be the cost capitalized for 369 method. Is that the right comparison? So maybe we'll have to check the breakup exactly, how much of the total capacity is capitalized and how much is in civics. That number is not related with me. But definitely, this is a total increase in crosswalk, part of which is for a commission project and part of which is still under construction. And therefore, they're not comparable vis-a-vis commissioning.
spk05: Okay, fine.
spk06: I can take that later. My last question is for you. So, you know, you have still four gigawatts in the negotiation in terms of tariffs. So, on the current module prices, do you think 2.93 is a number which you would be comfortable with or do you think you could still take something lower or you need to take a higher tax?
spk05: Certainly, the current prices that exist, all indications, if you talk to the polysilicon suppliers, you talk to the wafer suppliers, you talk to the cell suppliers, you talk to the module suppliers, indications are that this is very temporary and indications are that this is easing out or starting to ease out already. And, you know, the module manufacturers are seeing inventory build up. And so, therefore, we don't believe that this is a continuing trend that, say, for example, if the price today is X, like Murali mentioned, around 10% higher, that tomorrow it will be 15% or 20% higher. That is not the expectation. You know, we expect that normal service is going to resume. in the next few weeks, and we will see a steady moderation in the price of modules as we go towards the end of the year or beginning of next year. So if we sign, like I'm saying that in four weeks or six weeks time, if we are lucky enough to get some of our power pitches agreement signed, Those power purchase agreements need to be delivered by contract two years from now. Which means that we are going to be buying modules for those contracts only six quarters hence. So there is plenty of time. We do not expect that the module prices will rise in this period from the current prices to higher numbers. We do believe that they will moderate. We don't believe that... In this quick time, in the next four to six quarters, we believe that it is perhaps not possible to see numbers that happen just post-COVID, right, when suddenly the prices dropped from pre-COVID levels. But I would not be surprised if we are able to see pricing which is pre-COVID levels. sooner than later, as in over the next three, four quarters, we should be able to come back to pre-COVID levels, at least is our expectation. But of course, you know, it's a crystal ball to some extent, but this is what the market seems to be suggesting. This is what the market seems to be telling us.
spk06: My last question, just to say, you know, on the sale of such a tree, do you see any bottlenecks to that sale? Because there seems to be some sort of, you know, comment that says that radiation You need to re-invert CDN-60 as the transfer does not go on. Any major hurdle that you're looking at which is protecting the government?
spk05: So I think the Radiance team is super excited about this portfolio. They've got a great deal. We've got a great deal. It's a transaction where buyer and seller are both happy. So they are already engaged with us. They have a very good operating team. And we are very confident that they will make a success of this portfolio, perhaps even better than what we have done. And they seem to be very motivated and coveted. So we don't believe that there will be any issues. There are always issues in getting some of the CPs approved. Some take a bit longer, some are a bit faster. And you know how, unlike, this is a 150-odd megawatt portfolio, if it was a ground-mount portfolio, it would be one power purchase agreement. In case of rooftop, it's tens of power purchase agreements. Right. And therefore, you know, it does take time to get all the approvals and all the sign-offs. So that's why we have said that it will take till September. When we mentioned about the contract terms that you have specifically referred to, those are contract terms because obviously, you know, there will have to be some contract protection for both sides. in a situation when things go south. And therefore, we have been transparent in what the contract conditions are. But there is obviously no fear because both the buyer and the seller are motivated to make this transaction a success. Yeah, but you're still yet to get paid for it, right? Yes, of course. I mean, when the transaction closes is when we get paid. Fantastic. Thank you so much and all the best.
spk00: Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alvarez Cotto from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, everyone. I just wanted some clarification on the fiscal year 2022 guidance. So in terms of that guidance, what is embedded in the guidance? you know, relative to your projects under construction. So what is the timeline for completion for each project that's embedded in your full fiscal year guidance?
spk05: So, yes, if you look at our presentation, the earnings presentation, if you go to slide five, I think, and slide five, which is the projects under construction update, we have mentioned how the 950-odd megawatts, are likely to be commissioned, which is the second half of the Rajasthan 6 project, the Rajasthan 8 project, and the Rajasthan 9 project. So this 950-odd megawatts that will get added to our capacity in this time. So if plain vanilla, we do only this, we don't do any other, we don't do anything else, then we should be seeing us at our guided numbers by the end of this fiscal. So this is what is in our case, in our belief, this is the worst case scenario for us.
spk01: Okay. The reason I'm asking is I believe you pushed out 300 megawatts on Rajasthan 6 by one quarter. So I'm just trying to understand how you can still maintain the same fiscal year guidance when you've actually pushed out the timeline on 300 megawatts.
spk05: So the reason, Elvira, is that it was supposed to be done by May of 2021. That means we should have completed the second 300 megawatts by now. So that is not going to happen. Obviously, it does not happen. We are in June already. So we expect that it will get done in the next quarter. But the next quarter is still part of the fiscal year. So whatever push has happened on these projects, there has been a slight push on each of the projects that is there compared to last time on account of the fact that we practically did very little work over the months of April and May and partly in June. So therefore, the fact that we could not do much work in these two, two and a half months as there was... I was going through the second pandemic wave. So because of that, everything has been pushed back a little bit. But we still expect that all of these projects will get done in this fiscal year. And that's the reason why the target is the same. The reason there has been a change between our guidance from February to now is that we've just corrected the guidance for the sale of the rooftop projects. Earlier, we had included the rooftop projects. Now, we have taken those rooftop projects out. Otherwise, as far as the groundwater portfolio is concerned, there is no change as far as the fiscal is concerned.
spk01: Okay. And then just to – sorry to keep asking on this, but just to clarify – So the fiscal year guidance, is that the amount that you expect in this year, or is it a run rate amount exiting fiscal year 2022?
spk05: This is the installed capacity as on 31st of March 2022. Okay. Okay.
spk01: Okay. That's helpful. And then just in terms of on the hybrid projects and the wind projects, how are you thinking about returns on those projects relative to returns on solar-only projects?
spk05: The market is fairly mature on both the solar, wind and wind hybrid side. So we expect similar returns on whether we do solar or wind or wind hybrid. The technology is fairly well known. The players are very well known. The risks are very well known. So therefore, we don't expect there to be a differential in the return. How it helps us really is in two ways. It helps us because it increases our addressable markets. Because of the fact that earlier we were taking part only in solar options, and now we'll take part in wind and solar hybrid options also. So it increases our ability to win projects. And the second thing it does help us in is because this is where the technology is headed. We are looking at higher penetration of renewable energy in the grid. And as we have seen across the world, when that happens, the grid managers have difficulties. And slowly, it's moving towards... dispatchable renewable energy. And when you do dispatchable renewable energy, that can typically happen only with some sort of storage, whether it is battery storage or mechanical storage or pump storage or whatever the storage facility might be. And for storage facility to work, you need to You don't typically manage the storage in the morning peak hours and in the evening peak hours. So the evening peak hours typically gets filled, the storage gets filled by solar. And the morning is filled by wind because typically in India, the solar energy gets, you know, gets... gets dispatched during the day, whereas wind is largely in the night, so that you can actually use the same sort of storage system and use it once in the evening and once in the morning. So therefore, wind is a very important ingredient for the dispatchable power to be successful in India, and we need to be in that space.
spk01: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
spk00: Thank you. As there are no further questions I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
spk05: Thank you, everyone. Thanks for participating in our conference call, and we look forward to seeing you again. We are always available. Every card pencil is available anytime for more questions, more comments, and for any one-to-one discussions that you might want to have with us for clarity in anything that you might want clarity on. So I look forward to interacting with you more, and have a great week ahead. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Azure Power, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.
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