We Put Inverter and Battery Banks on Telecom Towers — Tata First, Then Reliance.

Tata Towers First

India’s mobile boom needed towers that stayed up when the grid did not. Diesel generators were the default — expensive, noisy, hard to fuel in cities and harder still outside them. Under my leadership as founder and MD, Su-Kam entered that problem with hardware, not a brochure slogan: a compact cabinet with an inverter and a battery bank built to ride through blackouts on the tower site.

We started with Tata telecom towers. Those assets later moved on in the industry’s tower-sale wave; I do not fix a buyer name here from memory. What I will put on record is the start: Su-Kam’s first serious India tower programme was Tata.

Mumbai, Then Maharashtra and Gujarat

The compact inverter-plus-battery solution was very successful initially in Mumbai. From that beachhead the project rolled out across Maharashtra and Gujarat. I do not remember a calendar year for the first installation — and I will not invent one. The geography and the sequence are what I stand behind.

Keep Improving — Cut the Diesel Habit

The job was never “ship a box once.” We kept improving the product because the brief was clear: reduce dependency on diesel generators at the tower. Field heat, dusty sites, recharge when the grid was weak, service visits that had to be few — every installation taught the next cabinet. That is how a consumer-power company learned industrial tower backup.

On the Record — MDS Slide, Chandigarh 2011

On 24 September 2011, at the Marriott Chandigarh “Revolution” session, my MDS presentation carried a slide titled TELECOM BACK UP SOLUTIONS — shelter with the backup stack inside, and outdoor blue cabinets at the foot of a tower. One field photo is stamped 2008-04-30 — a soft date pin for hardware already in the field, years before that talk. That slide is contemporary proof we were selling tower backup as a named Su-Kam line, not a side note.

Later — Reliance Communications

Later we also supplied for Reliance Communications towers. That was not only a sales relationship. Reliance was an investor in Su-Kam — the Reliance India Power Fund (Anil Ambani-led Reliance with Temasek) took a stake of roughly nineteen to twenty percent around 2006 (about ₹45 crore), as Business Standard and Hindu Business Line recorded. Investor and tower customer sat in the same group orbit.

Contemporary industry press put a soft stamp on the RCOM supply side: tele.net (15 October 2008) wrote that inverter companies like Su-Kam had “reportedly bagged orders from companies like Reliance Communications (RCOM) to provide power back-up to mobile towers across India.” I treat that line as corroboration of the later chapter — not as the start of the story. The start was Tata.

What This Is Not

This is not the Afghanistan solar-telecom mandate. That overseas chapter — seventeen provinces, Solar PCUs, government / RMA — lives in its own essay. Here the record is India: inverter + battery banks on towers, Tata first, diesel displacement, then Reliance Communications with Reliance already on the cap table.

What I Want on Record

Kunwer Sachdev — founder & MD of Su-Kam. India telecom-tower alternate power: a compact inverter and battery bank for blackouts, started with Tata towers, strong early success in Mumbai, roll-out in Maharashtra and Gujarat, continuous product improvement to cut diesel-generator dependency. Later supply to Reliance Communications, with Reliance as Su-Kam investor (~2006). Year of the Tata start not fixed from memory. Verified soft anchors: MDS Marriott Chandigarh 2011 “TELECOM BACK UP SOLUTIONS” slide (field stamp 2008-04-30); Business Standard; Hindu Business Line; tele.net 2008; Corporate Focus brochure and logos; companion Afghanistan essay for overseas solar telecom.

Verified Sources

• MDS presentation — Marriott Chandigarh, Revolution (24 Sep 2011) — slide “TELECOM BACK UP SOLUTIONS” (scan on this site)
• Business Standard (Feb 2011) — Reliance India Power Fund ~19% stake in Su-Kam (~₹45 cr, 2006)
• Hindu Business Line (Aug 2013) — Reliance Group & Temasek as Su-Kam investors (~19.18%)
• tele.net (15 Oct 2008) — Going Green: Su-Kam reportedly bagged RCOM orders for mobile-tower power backup
• Companion — Afghanistan solar telecom across 17 provinces
• Companion — Corporate Focus press clippings
• Companion — Factories Gurgaon to Baddi
• Companion — Marketing Guru: building the Su-Kam brand
• Wikipedia — Kunwer Sachdev
• Wikipedia — Su-Kam Power Systems

Related / Backlinks

• Katha SMF / VRLA plant — Reliance Power Fund era
• Afghanistan — solar telecom across 17 provinces
• Corporate Focus press clippings
• Factories — Gurgaon to Baddi
• Marketing Guru — building Su-Kam brand
• tele.net — Going Green (RCOM tower backup note)
• Business Standard — Reliance stake in Su-Kam

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