Switchgear industry: Indispensable part of India’s future

An industry analysis on the market and latest trends of switchgear industry

The global switchgear market is anticipated to grow over the years due to demand increase on account of new consumption centres and development of various renewable energy sources. The Indian Government has been focusing on improvement in the State Electricity Boards and there has been a huge addition of infrastructure for rural electrification leading to the demand of more switchgear. The growth is expected to be good by 2020.

The government is planning to reach the renewable energy capacity of 175 GW by 2022, according to Niti Ayog. The Indian industry is growing its ability to research and develop new innovative products. Sameer Saxena, Director- Marketing, Legrand (Group) India, confirms, “The Indian switchgear market is contributing towards the growth of global switchgear market to cross $ 140 billion by 2024. At different levels, there are government directives to replace older redundant systems to achieve operational safety and security in industrial establishments. Under these developments on the consumption side, India is emerging as a significant market for switchgear within the global switchgear landscape.”

According to Piyush Garg, Addl. Director, Balaji Switchgears Pvt Ltd, “As the global market is seeing an upward trend, India in itself has grown drastically in recent years. Special thanks to robust investment happening in infrastructure, telecom and railways. Switchgear market is directly going to receive all the benefits. In addition, as the technology is shifting from traditional breakers and starters to IoT enabled smart communication linked breakers and starters, the overall buying behaviour and revenue is growing exceptionally.”

India now being prime hub for all switchgear principals, may it be for manufacturing or for selling, has a huge potential. “As one of the fastest growing economy in this world, with 2nd highest purchasing parity in all the sectors, India is likely to contribute heavily in this figure by 2024, said Piyush.

Shifting towards the conservation of energy
Piyush acknowledges, “Conservation of energy has become a key priority for all of us now. May it be switchover to renewable sources or installation and monitoring through updated EMS and ABT Systems, power monitoring and power correction is being eyed very seriously by all the industries. Today’s industry demands smart power monitoring devices which can provide them end-to-end data for their premises. This in-turn has raised the bar of all such vendors in this industry who have now shifted from being only component provider to a complete service provider.”

The paradigm shift towards the conservation of energy is a much welcome trend to reduce overall carbon footprint of various industrial and other power consumption activities across applications. This will fuel the growth of the switchgear industry in India and will impact the global market as well. Sameer observes, “The rapid advancement in the smart grid technologies and increasing focus towards energy efficient products is giving rise to more intelligent devices and innovative solutions from switchgear manufacturers. Today, the load characteristics are changing, for example, use of LED lamps and higher efficiency motors which calls for switchgears to evolve in-line with these changes. This also fuels switchgear demand by way of replacement of old energy guzzling devices and equipments and the associated switchgear along-with it.”

Latest trends
IoT enabled devices, which are communication and data logging compatible are the ones which this industry wants and would accept in future. Piyush says, “Though communication at MV & HT level is already available with most of the utilities, industry now needs communication at final distribution level, so that proper monitoring can be done with the entire focus on energy saving. Also, as more smart homes are coming into picture, we can find much more emphasis on high-end tech-savvy electrical installations at all levels.”

Clearly, there is a trend towards energy efficiency for the last-line equipments and even in switchgear devices. Sameer acknowledges, “We also see a shift in preference towards more communication capable devices and remote monitoring and control across LV and MV switchgears. Legrand offers a wide range of communication capable and remote monitoring switchgear, which adhere to varying requirements.”

The low voltage switchgear has dominated the overall switchgear market and reflects the highest growth due to the growth in the residential and commercial sector. Governments are proactively investing in the urbanisation and rural development, renewal of existing transmission and distribution networks, creating more opportunities for the LV and MV Switchgear market.