Azure Power Global Limited Equity Shares

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Azure Power's Fiscal First Quarter 2022 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 touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikas Bansal, head investor relations at Azure Power. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Bansal.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On Monday evening, the company issued a press release announcing results for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 and in June 3, 2021. A copy of the press release and the presentation are available on the investor section of Azure Power's website at azurepower.com. Ranjit will start the call by going through recent key highlights. Murali will then follow up with an update on our projects under construction, technology preservation, and industry updates. Pawan will then provide an update on water, and then we will wrap up the call with Ranjit providing water to fiscal year 22 and fiscal year 22 guidance. After this, we will open up the call for questions. Please note, our safe harvest statements are contained within our press release, presentation materials, and available on our website. These statements are important and integral to all our remarks. There 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 60 and presentation on our website for a more complete description. Also contained in our press release, presentation materials, and annual reports are certain non-GAAP measures that we reconcile to the most comparable GAAP measures, and these reconciliations are also available on our website in press release, in presentation materials, and annual reports. It is now a pleasure to hand it over to Sajid.

Thank you, Vikas, and a very good morning, everyone. As you all know, India faced COVID-19's ugliest ways in this first quarter during April and May. There were massive medical emergencies witnessed across the country during its peak around mid-quarter, which, along with local restrictions, greatly restricted man and material movement. The daily infection rates receded around the end of June, and in the meanwhile, our vaccinations were able to pick up pace. As we speak, Then about 600 million doses have been administered in India till date, and about a third of the eligible adult population has at least got one dose. At Azure, we have stood by our employees and stakeholders in this fight against the pandemic through several initiatives focused on supplementing medical supplies, tracking the health and well-being of team members and their families, organizing awareness and mental wellness talks, and providing whatever support was needed by team members. We also organized two vaccination drives for our employees, and I'm happy to report that 99% of our eligible employees are now vaccinated. I know that some countries across the world are still battling the pandemic, and I wish them all the best in dealing with COVID-19. Moving on, I'm happy to report that we became signatories to UN Global Compact this quarter. We have fully aligned ourselves to the same principles of human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. Our ESG risk score by Sustainalytics has further improved, and Sustainalytics now puts us in the low-risk category compared to medium-risk category earlier. MSCI, the leading ESG rating agency, rates Azure Power as AA, which places us in the top quartile of all global utilities they cover and probably the highest amongst the peers in the country. We also recently retired Verified Carbon Unit, VCU, to offset our scope one and two emissions of 2019-2020. And we will continue to do so in future in our path towards carbon neutrality. We continue to strive hard to improve our ESG performance and demonstrate our leadership. We have a couple of major organizational updates to report subsequent to quarter end. IFC and IFC GIS, which has been longtime supporters of Azure since our early days and has a major role to play in our journey, recently sold their entire balance, 19.4% stake in the company to OMERS, one of the largest Canadian pension funds with net assets of over 100 billion Canadian dollars. The confidence that global long-term patient infrastructure capital investors like OMOS have placed in Azure demonstrates the strength of our company and Siemens are stated as one of India's premier renewable energy power producers with strong governance and profitable growth track record. Presence of CDPQ and OMOS are quite important from an investment view. also strengthens our position in terms of meeting capital requirements for our pipeline of projects. We also recently placed our third green bond in the debt capital market, primarily to retire our first green bond. The issue received tremendous response from global asset managers with book building and access of 5X will diversify order book across geographies. The issue closed at lowest ever coupon in the high-yield segment for any business out of it. From the lowest offering from any Indian renewable energy company to date and shall result in over 200 basis points of annual savings in landed interest cost for our 611 megawatts. of underlying assets. Both these events have further solidified Azure's position as the destination of choice for both equity and debt capital investments. We also reported last quarter on our agreement to sell Ghostop Portfolio to Radiance Renewables, which 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. We are in the process of obtaining the content of off-takers and vendors and see the transaction closing over the next few months. I had mentioned in my previous remarks how we are looking to increase our addressable markets by pouring into wind and solar-wind hybrid space. Continuing with that, we participated in a few auctions in the last couple of months and have won some capacity for which we are awaiting letter of award. We firmly believe that as the industry moves towards providing the possible renewable energy to the grid, wind and storage will be two important technology additions we have to plan for our portfolio. I have mentioned in my previous remarks how green hydrogen and plankton storage costs have the potential to disrupt our industry. We continue to monitor development in both these exciting technologies and will keep you posted as we take steps to deploy them to improve our data. On the four gigawatt projects for which we have letter of awards from SEKI, but are yet to sign power purchase agreements, we had a positive update from SEKI informing us that they have signed power sale agreements with a couple of distribution companies for a total of 800 megawatts. This is part of the first triumph of 3,000 megawatts of PSAs that SETI is looking to close as part of the manufacturing link scheme. We expect to have PPAs signed for about a third of the 800 megawatts zone. As the second wave has eased, we have seen renewed interest in buying power from distribution companies. Despite the pandemic, power demand recovery in India has clearly bounced back with peak demand dropping 200 gigawatts last month. This has encouraged this comp to invest in buying power for their future needs. Today, we are 73% more megawatts operating than we did at the same time last year, excluding the rooftop portfolio. There has been an 11% year-on-year increase in EBITDA from operating assets and a 12% increase in cash flow to SRE from operating assets during the quarter period. We continue to see steady improvement in this metric. The government continues to support the renewable energy sector in India. India recently achieved 100 gigawatts of installed renewable energy capacity in the country, making it the fourth largest in the world. On Red Bull Time Minister, at his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of Red Fort, three states and governments in India submitted a mission of 450 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. And more importantly, announced the path towards India's self-reliance in energy by 2047, i.e. 100th year of Indian independence. This is a significant announcement given that the climate change imperative coupled with energy self-reliance targets greatly enhances the renewable energy run this far. Most of India's oil and gas needs are met through imports. and the only way towards energy independence is to bank more heavily on renewable energy. In another significant positive development, a recent landmark judgment from the Appalachian Tribunal for electricity in the country allowed compensatory tariffs for solar power curtailment in the state of Tamil Nadu. This has provided a tremendous boost to investor confidence in the sector and bodes well for our growth trajectory towards 450 gigawatt installed capacity in the country by 2030. For the first time in India, the Appalachian Forum for Electricity has laid down the law that the developer will have to be compensated on account of illegal curtailment, even in the absence of a compensation clause in the power purchase agreement. We continue to look for suggestions from our investors and stakeholders on how we can further improve our disclosure and make it easier for you to understand and value our business. With that, I would like to turn it over to Murti.

Thank you, Ranjit. As we last reported, the second wave of COVID at its peak impacted our projects under construction, not only disrupting the supply chain, but also impacting construction activities at several of our sites. Subsequently, however, both COVID and the supply situation have improved significantly. As of today, we have completed and commissioned 400 megawatts in our 600 megawatt Rajasthan 6 project, and another 100 megawatts has also been completed and is now awaiting commissioning. The remaining capacity in this project is expected to go live in the next quarter. Thanks to the MNRE notification granting extension to all projects with commissioning due dates on or after 1st April 2021. We don't expect to incur any penalties for delays. Construction work on 300 MW Rajasthan 8 is now underway full swing and construction activity in 300 MW Rajasthan 9 project has commenced in right earnest. Work in Assam that had picked up after the initial COVID-related delays again took a hit. due to the second wave of COVID and inclement monsoon weather. Despite this, after the initial 25 MW, we have commissioned another 12.5 MW capacity in May. The next 12.5 MW is currently under commissioning. The full 90 MW Assam project is expected to be completed and commissioned by the end of this calendar year. We have provided some highlights of our ESG accomplishments on page six. As Ranjit mentioned earlier, We received a AA rating from MSCI for ESG and our ESG risk score by has improved the low risk category. We highlighted our ISO 45,001 certification earlier this year, which demonstrates Azure's focus on occupational health and safety. I'm happy to report we have also recently won the Green Tech Effective Safety Culture Award for 2021 from Green Tech Foundation. which signifies the efforts we have put in to ensure safety culture is embedded across our project locations and sites. Our carbon free generation has avoided about 1 million tons of CO2 equivalent this quarter, bringing the total to 10.5 million tons equivalent since inception. We remain net carbon neutral. We have plans for planting 15,000 trees in the immediate vicinity of a 600 megawatt Rajasthan 6 project site during this year. We also remain actively engaged with the communities where we operate and provide proactive support towards medical and health facilities, especially on the pandemic front. We are now looking to roll out our sustainability charter this fiscal and shall continuously strive to implement best practices to enhance our sustainability. On the technology front, Azure continues to be an early adopter. We were among the first companies in India to install a large-scale project based on monocoque panels, and we have just started construction of another large scale project using bifacial tracker technology where we expect yields in excess of 30% for our Rajasthan 9 project. These are industry leading efforts to ensure our projects are built and operated with the best returns metrics. Looking at industry and regulatory updates on page seven, India's achievement of 100 gigawatts installed renewable energy capacity has been a big milestone and the country continues to offer solid growth opportunities along with adequate confidence measures for investors in the sector. The government of India announced recently details of the USD $40 billion reforms-linked package for distribution companies, which will improve the health of the financially weaker discounts. It is also expected to help clear the backlog of PSAs that the power supply agreement to be executed with discounts who have not been signing PSAs. which was accentuated by the second COVID wave and falling tariffs. The good news is that overall power demand in India has started to grow now as the country emerges from the second wave. We are pursuing new opportunities such as wind and hybrid, and we assure you 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 PPAs at value-accretive tariffs. This would add to our contracted pipeline and provide returns above the cost of our capital. With that, I turn it over to Pawan to discuss the quarterly results. Thank you, Murali. Turning to page 9, as of 30th June 2021, we were operating 2052 megawatts on a PP or AC basis, which is 23% higher than what we were operating a year before. Our portfolio of 6955 megawatts remained stable from the previous quarter. While these portfolio megawatt numbers exclude rooftop portfolio, which is in the process of getting transferred to Radiance, our financials number continue to consolidate rooftop till the transfer process is completed. On page 10, looking at the quarter, our revenues continue to increase as we construct more projects. After adjusting for stock compensation expenses, our EBITDA has been 50.7 million US or 14% higher against 13% increase in revenues from the same quarter in the prior year. Turning to G&A, on page 11, our G&A increased marginally by 5%. Excluding non-CAS items, the G&A was flat year on year. As we remain focused on controlling our costs, we continue to expect our FY22 cash G&A to rise about 10% from FY21 level. As already shared, we have recently issued a green bond of 414 million US at the lowest ever coupon in high-end segment out of India. All our recent refinancings, both in the domestic as well as overseas markets, have resulted in substantial savings in interest rates, thereby improving our equity returns. Refinancing at lower costs reflects improved credit profile of the group, supported by strong sponsors such as CDPQ and Overs. We continue to expect lower interest rates for our ongoing as well as new financing and refinancings. Turning to stock compensation expenses, as the share price rises, our stock compensation expenses will increase when trading our G&A. For first quarter of fiscal 2022, we had a CR expenses of US dollar 1.3 million. Despite the challenges in the past few quarters, our DSOs have been fairly consistent at around 120 days on an average in the recent quarters. We believe there will be further improvements in the future with commissioning of projects with high credit for the counterparty and as we continue to focus on improving our collections. On page 12, you can see that EBITDA from operating assets increased about 11% year on year, and that cash flow to equity from operating assets rose about 12%. Net debt for operating assets was about 1.19 billion, and EBITDA for the last 12 months was about 182 million, resulting in net debt EBITDA ratio for operating assets of around 6.66 as of 13 June 2021. Finally, looking at page 13, providing balance sheet information, we had about 90.6 million of cash and cash equivalents, and our net debt stood approximately at 1.34 billion. As a reminder, for those that are calculating our debt ratios, the hedging assets of 105.8 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 hedges we have put in place related to our green bonds. During the second quarter, we have used part of this asset related to our first green bond to reduce the leverage on the green bond portfolio. With this, now I pass on to Ranjit to provide some commentary on our guidance.

Thanks, Mohan. I'm very happy to report that despite major disruptions during the quarter due to COVID, we have been able to achieve upper end of both our revenue and PLS titles for this quarter provided during last quarter. Even though we have just started on the recovery path from the second wave as of now, we would reiterate our numbers for the current fiscal, but we keep the market posted in our upcoming updates. For second quarter 22, we expect the revenue to be between INR 3,600 and 3,800 billion, and the PLS to be between 20.5% to 21.5%. With this, we will be happy to take questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. We now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press Start and 1 to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Philip Shen from Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. This is Justin Clare on for Phil today. So I first wanted to start off, so there's the 800 megawatts of projects related to the manufacturing link tender that have recently had the PSA signed. And I wanted to understand the next steps in this process here. It sounds like you could sign a PPA in the near term. But are you in negotiations right now for that PPA? And could this happen in, you know, the next week or month? Or what's the timeframe expected?

Hey, Justin. Thanks for the question. And this is the most important question for us. We are very, very happy that Techie has signed this 800 megawatts of TSA. So one-third of the 800 megawatts, which is our allocation, two-thirds will go to our peers. So one-third will come to us. The one-third allocation of 800 megawatt PPA, there is nothing being negotiated or anything of that sort. Techies going through their internal process to get approvals to find the PPA. And it's a question of today, tomorrow, day after, then they will invite us to sign the PPA, is what we have been told. So the SEC is going through their internal process for approval, and then they will invite us for the positive agreement.

Okay, got it. So then I wanted to understand, it sounded like you might have to take a markdown on that PPA, or at least there was that possibility that Could you talk about that potential still? And I think in the past you could be 10% to 15%. So what is that likelihood for the markdown? What could the amount be? And then is there a negotiation going on on that, or is it really that SECI is going to come to you with what the PPA will be?

Yeah, Justin, there is no negotiation going on whatsoever. The PSAs have already been signed. at the tariff of 2.61 paisa with the distribution company. So the PPAs will be signed at the 2.61 minus the SECI, you know, margin. And there is no negotiation involved whatsoever.

Got it. Okay. That's clear. Thank you. And then so there's the 800 of PSAs that have been signed so far. What's your expectation for the remainder of the capacity related to the manufacturing link tender? And then is it that you will get one-third of that capacity? So each time there's a PSA signed, you would expect to get one-third of that, or is there some other way that that might work?

So, Justin, whenever a PSA is signed, we expect to get one-third. You know, apart from the 800, there is another 1150 which has, you know, been approved by the respective boards of the distribution companies. So we are expecting, you know, those PSAs to be inked soon. That will take us to around 2,000 megawatts. And another 1,000 megawatts, there are two other 500-megawatt distribution companies that Becky is in talks with. where the initial approvals are being taken at the distribution company board. So those will take a little bit longer, maybe a few weeks. But the first 1,000 megawatts or 150 megawatts that I'm talking about should happen faster than that, should happen the next week or two.

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions. I will pass it on.

Thank you. participants. You may press start and 1 to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Puneet from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you so much and congratulations. We moved the first step. My question is, when do we have to start investing on the manufacturing side after the GPA gets signed?

So as far as the manufacturing is concerned, right, there is a manufacturing contract agreement that needs to be signed with Becky. So, you know, as soon as the manufacturing contract agreement is signed, then I think we have two years from that date to build the plant. So once the manufacturing contract agreement is signed, then we will, you know, I guess the order placement, et cetera, will take place. And I would think that the investment will happen about a year or 15 months after the manufacturing contract agreement is signed for it.

Okay. And would it also be proportional the way you signed it or you have to still invest a full $500?

So this is a discussion that we are doing with SEGI. And we will do it with our technology partners, also the manufacturing partners, to see what makes sense for them. How does it go with their modular construction plan? So we will have to see. I'm sure it cannot be done, for example, in a 50-megawatt kind of parcel. So we'll have to figure out what is the right size which we can actually set up So, you know, Seki has also told us, and we have also told Seki that let's get the PPA signed first, and then we will discuss this. There is no tearing hurry. You know, we are committed to building the manufacturing capacity, and therefore, Seki also understands that it is going to help us if we do the manufacturing capacity. So, you know, they are happy to discuss this first after getting their PPA signed.

My second question is, you said, you know, even at 2.61 minus maybe 7,000, it is still attractive enough. But when I look at the project cost, which was disclosed this time, it was 22 cents on DC basis. Back in September 2019, it was about 46 cents. So it is still worse off and tariffs are low. What has changed favorably on the, if at all, anything else?

So, you know, it's a little bit unfortunate that the DC cost is being portrayed the way it has been portrayed. And the reason is that, you know, very few megawatts were commissioned in this quarter. And this number is actually an accounting number given whatever on, as of March 31st, what was capitalized in our books. On June 30th, what is capitalized on our books. You take that two numbers, divide that by the number of megawatts that have been commissioned, and you come out with a number. So that number doesn't fully reflect the cost of, you know, when the numbers are small, when the commissioned numbers are small, it doesn't fully reflect the actual cost of the project. Because, you know, if you see the AC cost per megawatt, in this quarter is 53 cents and the DC cost is 52 cents. So the AC cost and DC cost is almost the same. So unfortunately the way the accounting is done, So the costs are not at the level of pre-COVID yet. The costs are slightly higher than that, but they are coming down.

Can I just add to that? It's Murali here. You see, the thing that's happening is you can't just do a life-for-life DC cost because what constitutes a DC has also changed. Back in the day, it was a polycrystalline module with fixed tilt. Today, we are looking at monopark modules. We're looking at bifacient. We're looking at tracker. A lot of things have changed. So the yield per megawatt has also gone up. The temperature has improved. The overall performance has actually gone up. So the cost per watt may be a metric if the technology is standard. But if the technology changes and the yields change, then we have to account for those. The second thing, of course, is that, as we all know, interest rates have dropped since what it was two years ago, but of course, that's a different discussion. So these are the other things that's changing in the environment.

So for the balance 903 megawatt, which is the NFO commission, what kind of PLF should one expect?

I'm sorry, can you please repeat that question? I think for the balanced 903 megawatts, which is still have to commission, what kind of PLF should one expect from those projects? So, you know, the current project that is, which is under commissioning, of which 400 is commissioned, 100 is ready, and another 100 is underway. There we, this is built on 1.5 times overloading. So we would expect a PLF in the range of 29 to 30%. The next project is built with 40% overloading, so the PLF may drop a little bit. And then the next project, which is coming up with trackers and bifacials, will be well north of 30%. It may be in the range of 31% to 32%. Okay. And the cost for bifacials would still be the same, or will that go up? No, the cost of bifacials would go up. And because it's trackers, it would go up. And so that's why, you know, just looking at the cost per watt may not be a fully, it probably wouldn't give the entire picture. That's very useful. Thank you so much. My last question is, post your green bonds issuance, what is the average interest cost and how does the maturity profile look like? So the interest cost of this bond that you've raised, actually the coupon is coming closer to 8%, it's less than 8%. And then we, as you speak, we are refinancing our projects. And after a significant majority and almost entire, the kind of response we're getting from lenders is very encouraging. So in the process of refinancing, we're getting interest rates for our new refinancing at as low as 7.5%. So it is ranging from 7.5% to 9% based on project to project, like whether we have completed refinancing or we are in the process of refinancing. Interesting. That's for you. Thank you so much and all the best.

Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Mahdeep. From Credit Suisse, please go ahead.

Hey, good evening. Mahdeep here from Credit Suisse. Thanks for taking your questions. Just on the PSA for the The rest of the 1 gigawatt, maybe you can talk about what PSAs do you expect on that? Is it still in that 2.61 rupees per kilowatt hour with that SECI margin of 7 cents, sorry, 7 paisa, or how are you thinking about that?

Hi, Rene. Thanks for the question. So the first 3,000 megawatt tranche is likely to be at the 2.61 paisa tariff. the 1,000 megawatts or the 150 megawatts that I'm talking about, the approvals that we are told they have been approved by the respective boards of the distribution companies are at the 2.61 Taika mark.

Perfect. And for the future projects, how are you thinking about the PPS for the future auctions because the solar plus wind hybrid, which you won recently this month, was signed at 2.35, right? So is that pressure, that 2.61 for future auctions, or how are you thinking about it?

You know, once the first 3,000 megawatts is signed, then we will then start the process of marketing the next trend. That's when we will, you know, because I guess the projects at that time, whatever is the solar tariffs around at that time, let's say four or five months down the road, that's how techie will look at because that's what the distribution companies will ask. The current tariffs that we are talking about are are reflective of the pricing that was there a few months back. And when we do the new tranche, the second tranche, it will be reflective of the solar tariff around there.

Got it. And maybe in terms of the timings here, I know that all of these signings or auctions or PSAs are with Secchi and obviously Lawton when the government has to deal with right now, but In terms of timing or maybe from an equity point of, you know, the capital needs point of view, when do you expect to, you know, need that $150 million of equity for these projects? And how do you, what plans do you have right now? What are you thinking about potential options to fund the first gig award for yourself?

So, you know, many times, the construction is concerned. As soon as the close to 300 megawatts of the first transit, 800 megawatts, we get one-third, gets signed, we will start the process of financial closure and so on. As I had mentioned in my last call, we have already started acquiring the land, so the land acquisition is well underway. So, you know, we are in a very great position to start planning the project construction on the ground as soon as the power purchase agreements are signed. As you know, we have two years to build this project. So, you know, that means that typically the equity requirement, you know, happens about nine to 12 months before the project is commissioned. So, therefore, you know, the equity need for us would come about a year from now, assuming that the path which is agreed with the science this week, then we will need the equity in about a year from now. So then before that, we should, you know, go out to the investors, the shareholders, the stakeholders, and figure out, you know, how we want to raise the money. So we have plenty of time.

Got it. Got it. No, that's helpful. And maybe just one last one for me and then jump back in the queue. Like in just terms of the – overall supply environment for solar and now you're increasingly getting into wind. How are you thinking about the module supply and prices and turbine supply and prices for next two years?

As far as the wind turbine module prices are concerned, wind turbine machines are concerned, the pricing is a little bit more stable. the technology is a little bit more stable. It is largely dependent on the price of steel. Whatever little variation happens on, you know, quarter to quarter basis on the turbine manufacturing is on the account of steel. So, you know, that is how we expect, and it is easier to, more easy to predict the cost, you know, cost of wind turbines. As far as the modules are concerned, we understand that, you know, they are heavily dependent on the cost of polysilicon and, you know, at the moment. We are seeing some stabilization in polysilicon pricing. We are seeing that supply is easing up. And what we hear from the manufacturers is that they expect prices to return to peak over the next couple of quarters. So that is what we have to go on. We are, you know, we are going to, I mean, in India, most of the modules which are going to be procured over the next year or so will be done through Indian manufacturers. So we are in touch with them, too, to figure out what their view is on module pricing. And everybody feels that, you know, within a couple of quarters, as the policy upon manufacturing comes online, we will see a moderation in pricing.

That's really helpful. And actually, just to follow up on that, if I may, what tariffs are embedded in the 2.35 PPA? And yes, that's the last one for me. Thanks.

It's very difficult for us to answer that. I don't even know whether I should answer that. So I would like to pass on that, Malik.

Thank you.

Thank you. Participants, you may press start and run to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Moses Sutton from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking the questions. Just continuing on the inverter loader ratio, what should we be using in our models? I think you noted a project is down to 1.4. Should we still assume 1.5 long-term Would you be doing 1.5 for bifacial? And then even on top of that, are you even thinking of using SIMPIM modules down the road as First Solar has decided to, you know, start local manufacturing?

So, you know, the load is really a function of the specific site. It's a function of how much clipping that we see, right? So when we built the 600-meter Rajasthan 6 project, it's located in Bikaner where the where the insulation is the 2% or 3% lower than a couple of hundred kilometers west, where we are building our eighth project. So over there, we dropped it from 1.5 to 1.4. That's one parameter. The other parameter is, of course, the cost of everything involved. We trade off the clipping losses versus the incremental investment for the yield, right? And then on your next question, which is, On the bifacial side, yes, the module costs are a little bit more expensive. We are also going with bifacial and tracker. We've done some pilots. We've reviewed the performance of certain other pilots across the country, and we understand the gain that is possible with a tracker on bifacial modules mounted on a tracker. So there we are going in the range of 1.3 to 1.35 as the overloading. When it comes to First Solar, I think... Sorry, I thought there was a question on thin film. So on First Solar, I think let them come on. I think they are planning to come in with their Series 7. Let's see how the facilities sort of get underway and when they would be ready for production. And at that time, depending on the market situation, we'll take a view of how that would sort of fit in.

Thanks. No, that's very helpful. And should we think for the inverter loader ratio, should we think of that 1.3, 1.4 range as a better assumption beyond April 2022 when a good portion of what you're building is going to get affected by the safeguard duties, or should we not think of it that way?

No, I don't think we can think of it that way because – It's largely driven by the site's conditions and the yield and the cost of panel, bifacial, tracker, et cetera. It's the cocktail of all of these things which would eventually lead to the decision in terms of whether it's going to be 1.3 or 1.4. Whenever we have greater yields with bifacial and tracker, then the inverter loading drops. If you go to the southern latitudes, say in Karnataka or Tamil Nadu, you might still go with 1.5 because the overall radiation is a bit lower. So the effective energy which is flipped may be a little lower.

Got it, got it. And then for the solar wind hybrid projects, what's the IRR we should think of, the hurdle rate for the business there? Is it a bit lower than the mid-teens so you can sort of get your footprint there, or is it in line with the rest of the portfolios?

I think the IRRs would not be too different. They would all be very similar. Although I don't know how to model some of these things, but there is a phrase that's commonly used, the risk-adjusted returns. So I think the risk-adjusted returns would all be very similar. So what we do is in case of a wind project, the way we model the wind, we build in for the fact that wind can have certain more uncertainties compared to solar. The deviation in insulation varies between just a few percent year on year, whereas in wind, the deviation can be a little higher. So to account for this additional deviation, the energy yield estimates are slightly lower. That's already factored in the EY studies, the yield assessment studies. So once that is taken into account, uh the construction risks are fairly similar there is nothing more or less in fact solar the land acquisition chances can be a little more because you need contiguous land whereas in wind the you know the the installing turbines and building the foundations are a little bit more tricky compared to solar so these things trade off each other and they are not they're not deal breakers they're not materially different from each other in the overall scheme of things so therefore Once you account for the resource variability in wind, which is slightly higher than solar, then beyond that point, I would assume that the returns would be similar for a solar or a wind or a hybrid.

Okay, no, very helpful. And then last one on trackers. You know, we've seen a lot of noise with steel and freight impacting the economics on trackers. You know, capex in India is a lot lower than, you know, the fully stacked capex in some other countries. How should we think of the tracker cost either on a US cents per watt or as a percentage of the total CapEx on the project? Of course, this is for projects that are in the upper range because they're using bifacial already from the cost profile. But how should we think of the type of tracker and its cost profile within the broader stack?

Good question. The bulk of a tracker is, you know, beyond the IT or the technology. The bulk of the cost is actually coming in steels. And unfortunately, over the last six to eight months, we have seen a very significant rise in steel prices. And therefore, this has pushed up the cost of trackers more than what you would have hoped, say, same time last year, for example. If I don't account for the increased cost of steel, then the cost of a tracker is So even if I didn't install a tractor, I have a basic cost, right? So I'm only going to look at the incremental cost. So if I didn't account for the increase in steel, then the incremental cost would have probably been in the range of five cents or six cents. With steel, it'd probably be a cent or two more.

Great. Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Participants, email press star and one to ask a question. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions. On behalf of Azure Power that concludes this conference, thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much. Thank you.