Nikhil Sawhney Turbocharges India’s Triveni Wind turbine Into An International Champ

This tale belongs to Forbes Asia’s insurance coverage of Best Under A Billion 2025, which highlights 200 Asia-Pacific public firms with much less than $1 billion in income and regular top- and fundamental development. See the complete listing, arranged alphabetically, right here

T riveni Wind turbine’s 10-hectare manufacturing facility facility in the Sompura commercial belt, regarding 48 kilometers northwest of India’s technology funding, Bangalore, is an attractive landscape of pink-and-yellow blooming hedges and a wealth of mango, coconut and sapodilla trees. However the heart of this green school is one more environment-friendly area– a dazzling, 10,000-square-meter production line producing blades and blades together with setting up bays and examination beds for heavy steam generators.

Powered by either nonrenewable fuel sources or renewables such as biomass, these gigantic makers make use of heavy steam to rotate a blades to create electrical power. The firm concentrates on generators of approximately 100 megawatts (MW), creating 300 to 350 makers a year at its 2 manufacturing facilities (the secondly lies in one more Bangalore suburban area). They are released in a variety of markets, such as concrete, steel and chemicals along with by independent power manufacturers. (Larger generators of greater than 100MW compose greater than 90% of the worldwide heavy steam wind turbine market.)

Amidst the consistent hum of the manufacturing facility, Nikhil Sawhney, the firm’s vice chairman and handling supervisor, discloses his aspirations: “In the following 5 years we’ll greater than dual our income,” he claims. “I do not see why we can not triple it additionally.” In the year finished March 31, Triveni’s income leapt 21% from the previous year to a document 20.1 billion rupees ($ 237 million) and take-home pay increased by a 3rd to 3.6 billion rupees, gaining it a place on the most effective Under A Billion listing of firms for the 2nd year straight.

Considering that obtaining entailed with procedures 14 years earlier, this fourth-generation heir of a Delhi clan with origins in the sugar organization has actually aided change Triveni from a greatly residential attire right into a significant worldwide gamer. Over that duration, market cap has actually risen to $2.4 billion from $262 million and it currently has actually 6,000 set up systems in 80 nations, up from 2,500 in 30 markets in 2011. It is the No. 2 gamer in the worldwide market in the up-to-100MW sector, after Siemens Power, a spin-off of German gigantic Siemens, according to U.S.-based power knowledge company McCoy Power News. “It’s been a trip based upon a great deal of emphasis and self-control,” the 48-year-old claims.

International Startup

Considering that accelerating its worldwide development in 2010, Triveni Wind turbine has actually motored its method to the No. 2 place on the market for its items, tracking just megabrand Siemens Power.

However Sawhney still has rate bumps to browse. The steam-turbine organization is undertaking fast adjustment in the middle of the shift to cleaner power; competitors is extreme not simply from Siemens however various other international gamers, such as Brazil’s TGM Turbinas and the U.K.’s Baker Hughes; and the hazard of tolls is rattling his united state development strategies, making him really mindful that he need to maintain introducing. “We require to create brand-new items and brand-new modern technologies and develop more recent market sections regularly,” Sawhney claims. “We are extremely paranoid as a business.”

Considering that going public in 2011, shares of Triveni have actually soared regarding 1,600%, driving Sawhney’s daddy, Dhruv Sawhney, under whom the $1.8 billion ton of money is detailed, right into the billionaire rankings, beginning in 2022. The fast-growing wind turbine organization represent two-thirds of his total assets of $2 billion, with the remainder mainly from a risk in the tradition firm Triveni Design & & Industries, which Sawhney’s older bro, Tarun, 51, runs as vice chairman and handling supervisor. (Their daddy is chairman and handling supervisor of both firms.)

Triveni Generator “has a leading setting in the residential market, an increasing share in the worldwide market, and solid technical expertise,” according to Teena Virmani, a research study expert at Mumbai-based economic solutions solid Motilal Oswal. “It’s additionally extremely effective monetarily,” she includes. It leads in India with a 55% market share in income terms, adhered to by Siemens Power India with 40%, according to the company.

While the residential market for heavy steam generators got 10% in income terms in financial 2025, partially as a result of nationwide political elections and macroeconomic anxieties, Virmani anticipates need to restore in financial 2027. She mentions a 120% enter the firm’s residential queries– thought about a forerunner to orders– in financial 2025; worldwide queries increased 30%. Motilal Oswal approximates compound yearly development of 19% for both income and after-tax earnings over the following 2 years.

Cranking Up

Triveni Wind turbine’s income has actually expanded at a CAGR of 30% over the previous 4 .

The worldwide market for heavy steam generators approximately 100MW omitting China and Japan decreased regarding 28% in gigawatt terms from 2014 to 2024, according to McCoy. However “we do not believe this is reflective of the lasting market,” claims Sawhney. Triveni has actually maintained its energy, and exports– generally to Europe, the Center East and Southeast Asia– represented virtually fifty percent of complete income in the year to end-March, up from 11% in 2011.

Sawhney claims greater than 70% of its generators make use of renewables, such as biomass. This remains in line with information from McCoy that makers powered by renewables represented virtually three-quarters of the worldwide market for up-to-100MW heavy steam generators in 2024, up from 42% in 2014, while those making use of nonrenewable fuel sources was up to 22% from 36%. In one more nod to sustainability, Triveni has gadgets that transform local waste right into power. A number of its makers additionally enter into consolidated heat-and-power systems, which record waste warm from producing electrical power and utilize it for various other commercial functions, boosting power effectiveness.

” We are extremely paranoid as a business.”

Triveni’s crucial transforming factor remained in 2010, when the family members, which went to the moment mainly making just tiny generators of under 30MW, accelerated its worldwide aspirations by developing a joint endeavor with General Electric to make larger makers for abroad markets. The makers were generated in India with GE marketing them abroad. The joint endeavor aided drive worldwide development till 2019 when the companions went their different methods, with Triveni ultimately getting GE’s risk.

Regardless of the break up, exports have actually leapt threefold considering that Triveni went solo. “Our competition because market [for 30MW-100MW turbines] is considerable,” Sawhney claims. International sales obtained an increase in 2016, when he relocated right into making generators for the oil-and-gas sector that follow security, performance and various other criteria established by the American Oil Institute (API), a U.S.-based profession team. Triveni currently provides API-compliant makers to the Center East, Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and Europe. Virmani explains the marketplace as affordable however rewarding and claims the firm’s “technical know-how and faster turn-around abilities” make it well-positioned to record a bigger share.

S awhney’s financial investments in developing technical expertise ended up being one more rewarding wager. The firm currently holds around 400 licenses, commercial styles, hallmarks and copyrights and turn out 4 to 5 brand-new items a year. It has enduring research study collaborations with colleges in India and abroad, consisting of the Indian Institute of Scientific Research in Bangalore and the College of Cambridge in the U.K., Sawhney’s university. “No person accredits world-beating modern technology,” he claims. “We need to develop it ourselves.” Capex for financial 2026 is evaluated 1.7 billion rupees and besides R&D will certainly be made use of for boosting screening and setting up framework. “We can make use of cash money for development [via M&A], however we do not wish to expand like that,” Sawhney describes.

The R&D initiatives have actually equated right into even more organization. In January, in cooperation with an Italian firm, it racked up a 2.9-billion-rupee electric power storage space task from state-run power-generating firm NTPC. The system presses industrial-grade carbon monoxide two right into a fluid state that can be maintained under stress and launched as required. The benefit of the method is that power can be saved without making use of unusual planets such as lithium, which is made use of by battery storage space manufacturers, Sawhney describes. While he is positive regarding this modern technology, he claims scaling up could be an obstacle. “It’s very easy to introduce and model in India as a result of the affordable, however … it is difficult to scale up due to the fact that individuals are risk-averse,” he describes.

Sawhney recognized early that method to separate Triveni from its competitors would certainly be to concentrate on aftermarket solutions. The firm has collaborations with neighborhood workshops and solution centres to fix and recondition not simply its very own designs however additionally those of various other producers. “Considering that we deal with a brand name discount rate when contrasted to worldwide firms, our whole offering requires to be much better, we need to up the solution video game, we need to up the action time,” he insists. Aftermarket solutions have actually increased to 32% of income in financial 2025 from 16% in 2011.

” No person accredits world-beating modern technology. We need to develop it ourselves.”

One more crucial benefit for Triveni is that it can supply affordable personalized items. When Gurgaon-based JK Concrete was purchasing a heavy steam wind turbine for a concrete plant in 2022, Triveni had the ability to incorporate a brand-new 18MW tool right into the firm’s existing wind turbine deck, transmission, generator and various other components. “They truly went above and beyond,” claims JK Concrete’s chief executive officer Madhav Singhania. “No person else might have generated the kind of service that they provided.”

JK Concrete claims the refit expense much less than half the quantity they would certainly have needed to pay to an off-the-shelf supplier, that would certainly have changed the entire system. Singhania touched Triveni once more in 2024, looking for a 23MW heavy steam wind turbine for one more manufacturing facility. Sawhney claims that 90% of their consumers return with repeat orders.

The firm invested $10 million increasing in the united state, consisting of opening up a 9,300-square-meter setting up plant in Houston in 2014, closer to its oil-and-gas customers. However Sawhney claims the firm is “resizing” its united state aspirations when faced with possible united state profession tolls. “The enhanced unpredictability has actually not brought about buy conversions,” he describes, including that the firm could switch over to making use of a neighborhood supply chain in the united state to make generators stateside if tolls are difficult. The united state system added much less than 1% to income in financial 2025.

The capacity to pivot might become part of Sawhney’s DNA. His great-grandfather established a sugar-making organization in 1932, after that branched right into sugar equipment in 1961 and heavy steam generators in 1968, which in the beginning were powered by bagasse, the deposit from squashing walking cane stalks. In 1973, Sawhney’s daddy signed up with the sugar-equipment production and design organization run by his uncle prior to combining it with his very own daddy’s sugar mills in 2000 to develop Triveni Design & & Industries. The patriarch is greatly attributed with improving the procedures.

Sawhney and his bro, Tarun, matured in Delhi, where the major sugar organization was headquartered. Like their daddy, they both mosted likely to the elite, all-boys Doon boarding college in Uttarakhand in north India. Sawhney and his bro additionally both adhered to in their daddy’s steps by going to Cambridge, where Sawhney gained a master’s level in business economics. In 2002 he headed to the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Institution for an M.B.A.

” There was never ever any type of stress to operate in the family members organization … my papa pressed me and my bro to get outdoors direct exposure,” Sawhney claims. He interned at Nomura and Barings throughout his summer seasons at Cambridge, however after organization college he signed up with the sugar-trading workdesk at Triveni Design prior to relocating 2007 to its generators department, which was ultimately dilated to develop Triveni Wind turbine. While the dollar still quits with his daddy, Sawhney claims he has functional liberty. “We are extremely straightened in regards to the bigger objectives,” he claims.

So will the future generation be associated with business as well? “Why not? If I obtain the qualities,” quips Sawhney’s only kid, 16-year-old Zahan, that’s headed to the U.K. for A-level research studies. He had actually accompanied his papa to the Sompura manufacturing facility in July. “It would certainly be my hope that he deals with business due to the fact that he locates it interesting and pertinent,” claims Sawhney. “He can take a service that has a heritage and a commercial client base and make it extra pertinent to a larger globe.”

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