We Did Not Stand in the India Pavilion. We Took a Stall in the Main Halls of Munich.

The World’s Largest Solar Fair — And an Indian Stall

June 2011. Munich. Intersolar Europe — the fair everyone in solar already knew.

Our own contemporaneous write-up, preserved on solarenergydemystified and on the old blog.su-kam.com via Wayback, put the numbers plainly: 8–10 June 2011, about 77,000 visitors, roughly 2,280 exhibitors. Off-grid and grid-tied photovoltaic systems. The Solar Power Conditioning Unit — charge controller, inverter and grid charger in one integrated idea.

PR Newswire and pv magazine covered the fair’s scale that year. German giants. Chinese factories. American tech. And in that crowd: Su-Kam, from India.

Not the India Pavilion. The Main Halls.

This is the part I want remembered carefully.

It was Su-Kam’s first exhibition in Europe. We did not stand only in an India pavilion. We took a stall in the main exhibition — in the halls where the industry actually walks. In 2011, that was a statement. Indian companies in our field — power backup, inverters, the solar electronics we lived in — largely dared not go to Europe and plant a flag in the main halls. Country pavilions are safer. Main halls are where you are measured against the world’s best without a national cushion.

I am not claiming we were the only Indians at Messe München that week. I am saying that in our category — the companies that built inverters and solar PCUs the way we did — showing up that way was rare. No peer from our lane stood beside us in that sense. That loneliness was the point.

CE and UL Were Already Done. Europe Was the Next Door.

We did not walk into Munich hoping a sticker would appear later. CE and UL were already taken — the quality passports that make a serious European (and North American) conversation possible. Without CE, you are a tourist in the EU market. We had done that homework years earlier.

The full CE chapter — first Indian inverter company with CE via DNV Norway in August 2005, Economic Times quotes, Spain and Portugal, the technical problems, the momentum I let slip — lives on KunwerSachdev.com. Munich was the stage that certification had unlocked. There was a strong will to get into European countries. Not someday. Then.

I Led the Team

I was leading the team in Munich. Not a report from a sales manager. Not a photo forwarded afterwards. Founder and Managing Director on the floor — booth, buyers, halls, the long days of a three-day fair that feels like a week.

That matters to me because prestige visits and exhibitions only become culture when the person who signs the risk stands inside it. Swissnex later came to Gurugram. Kohler later stood on a Delhi–NCR stage. Munich was us going the other direction — carrying an Indian brand into Europe’s hardest solar room.

We Did Not Do Well After. We Still Tried.

Honesty belongs here too.

We did not do well after the exhibition — not at the commercial conversion I had wanted. Leads, follow-ups, the grind after the lights go down on a trade fair: that is where Europe is won or lost. We tried. We did not lock the market the way the ambition deserved. I have written elsewhere about momentum that slipped; I will not rewrite Munich as a victory lap it was not.

What I will put on record is the attempt itself. First Europe show. Main halls, not a pavilion comfort zone. CE and UL already earned. Founder-led. An Indian solar-electronics company willing to be measured in Germany in 2011, when peers in our field largely stayed home.

What I Want on Record

For Su-Kam, Munich 2011 was proof of intent: Indian engineering on a European floor, under Kunwer Sachdev’s leadership, with certifications already behind us and a stall placed where the industry actually walks. For me personally, it sits next to other hard chapters — Kohler launched and later called off; Swissnex hosted with pride — as evidence that we kept choosing the bigger room even when the scoreboard after the event was unfinished.

At least we tried. As a first Indian company in our field to take that kind of Intersolar risk in Germany, that trying still matters.

Verified Sources

• KunwerSachdev.com — CE mark, Munich, and the momentum that slipped (full founder essay)
• KunwerSachdev.com — founder home / essays
• Su-Kam participates in Intersolar Europe Exhibition (1 Aug 2011)
• Wayback — blog.su-kam.com Intersolar Europe post (2011)
• PR Newswire — Intersolar Europe Munich 8–10 June 2011 (fair context)
• pv magazine — Intersolar Europe 2011 on course (fair context)
• Facebook Archive — Intersolar Europe Munich 2011
• Related — From Tamil Nadu to Munich (Solar PCU series)

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Related

• KunwerSachdev.com — CE mark & Munich essay (full founder account)
• KunwerSachdev.com — more founder essays
• From Tamil Nadu to Munich — Solar PCU series
• ISA Technovation 2011 — same year, Bangalore
• Swissnex visit — later Europe-linked prestige at home
• Kohler launch — another hard partnership chapter
• Facebook Archive
• All solar blogs