With a network of around 800 CPOs deployed, the company targets consumption of 10,000 electricity units each day by December 2023 and approximately 15,000 units each day before the end of this fiscal year.
Trinity Cleantech Pvt Ltd will be spending INR 30 crore to set up 1,500 charge points (CPOs) in India before the end of this fiscal year. Rajkumar Medimi, CEO of Trinity Cleantech, mentioned in an exclusive conversation with Electronics B2B that these CPOs will be deployed in all Tier-1 cities in India except Kolkata. These will be listed on the Thunder+ app.
“We got the approval for INR 30 crore from one of our banking partners only last month. All of this will be deployed for establishing CPOs in public places,” he said.
Additionally, the company has partnered with municipalities, bus and railway stations, public parking spaces, and other public places to set up these CPOs. These entities will act as the land lease partner for Trinity Cleantech’s CPO business, while the incoming electric connection will be on a pay-per-use basis, and charger installation, operation and maintenance will fall under the company’s kitty.
“For someone like a hotel, we will be doing this on the basis of revenue sharing. The institution will handle the land lease, incoming connection, and the charger cost. The revenue generated via the charger will then be divided among the parties involved,” he explained. There can be more “such business models” in the future. The company says it is sorted in terms of funds required for CPO expansion this fiscal year. It has initiated talks with “potential partners” for the next fiscal year.
10,000 Electricity Units Consumption Per Day By December 2023
Having a network of around 800 CPOs deployed, the company is targeting consumption of 10,000 electricity units each day by December 2023, and approximately 15,000 units each day before the end of this fiscal. As of today, its CPOs are consuming 3,500 units.
“Only 10 out of these 800 CPOs are DC. We expect this number to be 150 DC fast chargers and 1,350 normal chargers before the end of this fiscal,” Medimi said.
The Thunder+ chargers deployed at these CPOs are sourced from another business arm of Trinity Cleantech, which Medimi said can manufacture 4800 regular chargers and 1,200 DC fast chargers annually.
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“We procure boards, guns, and other components ourselves. These are used to assemble EV chargers at our facility in Hyderabad, which is a team of 100 individuals,” he highlighted.
Via this arm, the company is also in touch with other EV OEMs, fleet owners, and parking spaces to offer EV chargers to them. For the EV charger retail business, Trinity Cleantech has recently signed an MoU with Keto Motors and Sierra Electric to install fast chargers at 400 dealer-defined points.
The company only targets the electric two-wheeler and electric three-wheeler charging ecosystem. While it is procuring 30 kW and 60 kW DC fast chargers for more oversized vehicles from other charger makers, it says manufacturing of these will “soon” start at its facility.
“The unit consumption per day will increase dramatically once we start deploying CPOs on a bigger scale for cars and commercial vehicles,” Medimi added.
OEM Partnerships Next
While the company has signed MoUs with a few OEMs, it hopes to sign some “major ones soon”. For the record, Trinity Cleantech sold a controlling stake in the Olectra EV business to Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) in early 2020. MEIL and BYD, during the first half of this year, submitted a proposal worth $1 billion to set up electric car manufacturing in India. Trinity is now a supplier to Olectra.
“We are in close discussions with BYD to help them with EV chargers. There are other discussions taking place under NDA,” he said.
The company is also confident that its “parking and EV charging business” for fleet operators will succeed in the long run. Trinity also retails its tech platform to fleet operators on a Software-as-a-service model that helps EV owners analyse data their vehicles generate. Medimi added that Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) services for setting up large EV charging parks is also gaining a lot of traction.
“Of course, there will be consolidation in the times to come. Until then, we will focus on increasing our top and bottom line,” he concluded.
