Waaree Renewable Technologies Ltd (BSE: 534618) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Apr. 17, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Nidhi Vijaywargia — Investor Relations, MUFG Intime India Private Limited
Manmohan Sharma — Chief Financial Officer
Hitesh Mehta — Executive Director
Analysts:
Yashodhan Nerurkar — Analyst
Raman K V — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Sweta Jain — Analyst
Ishita Lodha — Analyst
Nirav Vasa — Analyst
Maitri Shah — Analyst
Naman Maheshwari — Analyst
Karan Sanwal — Analyst
Samarth Khandelwal — Analyst
Anushka Vora — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Waaree Renewable Technologies Limited Q4 and FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call organized by MUFG Intime India Private Limited. [Operator Instructions]
I now hand the conference over to Ms. Nidhi Vijaywargia from MUFG Intime India Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma’am.
Nidhi Vijaywargia — Investor Relations, MUFG Intime India Private Limited
Thank you, Aldrich. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you all to the earnings conference call of Waaree Renewable Technologies Limited to discuss the Q4 and FY ’25 business performance. Today on the call, we have from management, Mr. Hitesh Mehta, Executive Director; Mr. Manmohan Sharma, CFO; Mr. Abhishek Pareek, Group Head Finance; and Mr. Rohit Wade, General Manager, Investor Relations. Before we proceed with this call, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today’s call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. For more details, kindly refer to the investor presentation and other filings that can be found on the company’s website.
Without further ado, I would like to hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks, and then we will open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, Manmohan sir.
Manmohan Sharma — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Nidhi. Good afternoon to all of you. I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you for joining the earnings conference call of Waaree Renewable Technologies Limited, where we’ll be discussing our business performance for Q4 and FY 2025. I hope you all have got the opportunity to go through our financial results and investor presentation, which has been uploaded on the stock exchange as well as on the company’s website. I also want to express my sincere gratitude to all those who have dedicated their time to join this call and have consistently been part of our journey. I have along with me, Mr. Hitesh Mehta, Executive Director; Mr. Abhishek Pareek, Group Head, Finance; Mr. Rohit Wade, General Manager, Investor Relations; and other key members of our management team.
We are pleased to announce a revenue of INR1,597.75 crores for FY 2025 compared to INR876.5 crores in FY 2024, reflecting impressive growth of 82.29%, significantly surpassing the growth rate of India’s solar sector during the same period. This achievement underscores our strong position within the industry and highlights the progress we have made in the renewable energy space. This growth aligns with the broader energy landscape in India where the total installed power generation capacity reached 483.26 gigawatts this year. The renewable energy sector, in particular, has made remarkable strides with India’s total renewable capacity rising to 220.10 gigawatts in FY 2025, up from 198.75 gigawatts in the previous fiscal. Solar energy alone now contributes 105.65 gigawatts. This growth reinforces India’s leadership in clean energy and its dedication to a sustainable future.
Solar energy, as always, remains the backbone of India’s clean energy strategy, accounting for a major portion of the new capacity additions. India solar power sector particularly has witnessed a major boost with an addition of 23.83 gigawatts in FY 2025, a significant increase over the 15.03 gigawatt added in the previous year. This growth is due to rapid expansion with contributions from 81.01 gigawatt of ground-mounted installations, 17.02 gigawatts from rooftop solar and other solar segments contributing to 7.61 gigawatts. The diversity in these additions reflects growing adoption of solar energy across utility scale and distributed categories. The Government of India has played an important role in driving this growth by setting up ambitious target to achieve 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
Segment-wise, the government aim to reach 28 gigawatts [Phonetic] from solar and balance from other renewable sources. Achieving this ambitious target will require a rapid pace of growth with annual capacity additions expected to reach 40 gigawatts to 50 gigawatts in the coming years. On the ground, the government’s PM-KUSUM scheme has made significant strides with 4.4 lakh solar pump installed in FY 2025. It is a 4.2-fold increase over the previous year. The PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, which promotes rooftop solar installation has also seen tremendous growth with over 11 lakh households benefiting from it as of 31st March 2025. These schemes not only contribute to India’s renewable energy capacity, but also ensures that clean energy reaches the grassroot level, benefiting millions of people across the country.
Now turning to our financials and operational performance for the Q4 and year-ended FY 2025. As on date, we are proud to announce that our unexecuted order book stood at 3.2 gigawatt peak. Over the course of the year, we successfully executed 1,524 megawatt peak of EPC orders, which around 500 megawatt peak executed in Q4. Our EBITDA for FY 2025 stood at INR310.90 crores, representing a year-on-year growth of 50.06% as against INR207.18 crores in the same period of last year. Our PAT for FY 2025 reached INR228.92 crores, making a year-on-year increase of 57.64% as against INR145.22 crores in FY 2024. The improvement in profitability is the result of our focus on operational efficiency and cost management as well as our ability to scale our business efficiently. For Q4, we reported revenue of INR476.58 crores, reflecting a growth of 74.37% compared to the same period last year.
Our EBITDA for Q4 stood at INR126.33 crores and PAT of INR93.77 crores, both showing significant increase as compared to Q4 FY 2024. We are proud of the progress made over the past year with our financial performance, reflecting the continued growth of the renewable energy sector and our ability to manage large projects while maintaining profitability. As we look ahead, we remain confident about the long-term growth of India’s renewable energy market, driven by supportive policies, advancing technologies and the increasing use of solutions like BESS, hybrid projects and data centers. This progress marks the beginning of a transformative phase for the sector. Thank you once again for your continued support.
We now open the floor for any questions you may have. Thank you again.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you, sir. We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Yashodhan Nerurkar from Ionic Wealth. Please go ahead.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So I just wanted to understand your working capital cycle. If you could just break down right from the time you get a contract, say, 100 megawatts, how are the advances collected? And how is it getting deployed back into the business? So could you just explain the whole working capital cycle and the cash management around it?
Manmohan Sharma
Yeah. Thanks. The working capital cycle, like you said mentioned for 100 megawatt or maybe large scale of project will differ from project to project. And typically, we receive around 5% to 15% as advance and balance 65% to 70% within 45 to 60 days from the date of supply or dispatch of the material. And balance another 25% to 35% we receive once we complete the majority of the work. And maybe 5% would be as a retention money, which is likely to be coming back to us maybe within three to four months after the project is executed.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
So is it fair to say that nearly 50% to 60% of — if the project is around 100 megawatts based on what you have said before around you make INR1 crores, INR1.1 crores for every megawatt of project that you have done. So is it fair to say out of 100 megawatts, if the project duration is, say, three to four months, you would probably receive 50% to 70% of the project revenues, say, in two months, within two months?
Manmohan Sharma
Yeah, yeah. Revenue is a little bit different than the collection of cash because we are getting payments based on our milestone and billing. So it is two different things little bit.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
No, no, no. So what I wanted to understand is once you get a contract, say, 100 megawatts, obviously, you said that you get cash in advance, right? That is 10%, 15%. Post that, once you dispatch the material at the site, then you get some more payments for the particular project. Is my understanding correct?
Manmohan Sharma
Yes. So you say within 90 — 60 to 90 days, we realize our full payment based on the size of the project, what we are executing. Maybe the larger size of project, the duration may be more in terms of our execution process. And within three to four months, we are getting the entire including retention money from the customers.
Hitesh Mehta
So Yashodhan, to further complement this and for your understanding, you can assume around 10% to 15% payment on the date of signing of contract, number one.
Number two, 65% to 70% payments against the supplies that we do. Generally, we receive letter of credit from our customers through banks, which means all our supplies are always secured because principally, Waaree Group does not give credit in general at all. So that keeps our cash flows very healthy.
We dispatch the good by that time, we would have received, let’s say, 10% advance, 65% to 70% against dispatch; almost 75% payment is received by the time we dispatch the product from the site. And the last — so 25% payment is a milestone-based payments.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
Okay. Okay. Got it. So the reason why I ask is from ’22 to ’25 — in FY ’22 to ’25, your sales have gone up by almost 10 times, but the cash [Indecipherable] that has gone up by, say, around five times. So the mismatch, I just wanted to understand where is the balance cash going?
Manmohan Sharma
So if you look at the kind of contract that we have taken over the past from we have started our C&I sector small projects today, we are talking about the gigawatt single location contract, two gigawatt worth of contract. The longevity of this contract is from somewhere between nine months to 12 months of time. Hence, the capital deployment during this period, which typically is the retention money 10%, 15%, which comes at the rear end of the project comes off lately.
So hence, the cash flow from operation profile little changes with the change of profile of our customers. And effectively, you can assume that we will receive 75% to 80% payment by the time this price and rest 20%, 25% payment is received by the time we complete the project.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
Okay. Okay. So just one suggestion from my side. So going forward, can you just put out any new agreements or contracts that you’re winning? Can you just put out a small press release as to what are the contracts or what is the agreement like? What is the tenure of the project or some details about the project? I mean that would be very helpful.
Manmohan Sharma
We’ll look into it because these are the details which is related to the company specific. So whatever possible, we will be able to.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
So just a brief question as to.
Hitesh Mehta
Yeah. As a matter of fact of our disclosure policy for every contract, we do relevant disclosures as required under the LODR regulation that we believe we can continue to do so.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
Okay. Okay. And just one last question on your dividend policy. So do you have plans to increase the dividend payouts going forward?
Hitesh Mehta
As and when the Board approves it, I think we should get back to you which is our Board approvals.
Yashodhan Nerurkar
Okay, okay. Thank you. That’s it from my side.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Raman KV from Sequent Investments. Please go ahead.
Raman K V
Hello, can you hear me?
Manmohan Sharma
Yeah.
Raman K V
Sir, I have two questions. One is with respect to the order book, the INR50 crores order book. Can you give a time line like what is the execution period?
Manmohan Sharma
Okay.
Raman K V
Sorry, and with respect to this order book itself, is this order book — does this order book have anything like a part of solar plus energy storage? And if so, what percentage?
Manmohan Sharma
So the order book as of now we have is 2.2 gigawatt and which is likely to be executed in the next 12 to 15 months. 3.2 gigawatt.
Raman K V
And so, sir, but in the presentation, you have written that the order book is 26.5 gigawatt.
Hitesh Mehta
So to clarify that, the 26.5 gigawatts of our total order book is the order book at the Group level. So the slide that you’re referring refers to the group order book. At the EPC company level, the order book is 3.2 gigawatt to be very precise. I hope that clarifies.
Raman K V
And what will be the — in terms of rupee?
Hitesh Mehta
So we take a thumb rule of somewhere between INR1.1 crores to INR1.2 crores in the contract where there is no solar modules. In the contract where there is a solar module, the price increases by another INR1.5 crores to INR1.6 crores. But as a thumb rule, you will take INR1.2 crores for conversion purposes for illustration purpose.
Raman K V
Yeah. And this will be executed over?
Manmohan Sharma
Nine to 12 months, yes.
Hitesh Mehta
Yeah.
Raman K V
Sir, this is only the EPC, right, or this has any BESS orders or?
Manmohan Sharma
We have one order of 40 megawatt of BESS project.
Raman K V
Okay. Sir and I just wanted to know your FY ’26 guidance.
Manmohan Sharma
Okay. So we normally don’t give any future guidance as a policy matter.
Raman K V
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Rakesh Banerjee [Phonetic] from RAC Capital. [Phonetic] Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, am I audible?
Manmohan Sharma
Yeah. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is like nowadays, we see that many of the small players are trying to get into this solar EPC space. And I wanted to have some color from you regarding the competitiveness in the industry. And the narratives in the economy is that there are certain margin pressure and off late the flow is not also commensurate in terms of the kind of execution we have shown in the past. So I want some color from you on the growing competitiveness in the industry and the normal margin that is possible from this business.
And secondly, I mean, another part that is very important is that we are already having — let’s say, you are saying that we are having around 3.2 gigawatt of capacity — I mean, order book, and we are going to execute that in the next nine to 12 months. What about the new orders, like new orders flow has been really, really new. So I wanted some color on that as well.
Manmohan Sharma
As you are aware that like in the last quarter also, we have received order of around 500 megawatts during the last quarter as well. And with respect to margin and competition, which you have mentioned that competition is healthy for the industry. And we are also — the margin is also maintained going forward also.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. So we can assume that the 19%, 18%, 19% margin that we have clocked this time?
Manmohan Sharma
No. The margin, we are not giving any kind of guidance as far as the margins are concerned, but it should be in the range of 14% to 15% going forward.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you. And within this order book of 3.2 gigawatt like do we have any IPP project or everything is CPP?
Manmohan Sharma
No, no. We don’t have that.
Unidentified Participant
We don’t have any IPP projects in this, right?
Hitesh Mehta
This order book of 3.2 gigawatts only represent the EPC order. I hope that clarifies.
Unidentified Participant
And lastly, to execute this 3.2 gigawatt of order book, what would be the kind of working capital requirement and how prepared we are, whether we have to raise any capital, whether we have to borrow, what is the plan of the company to fund that working capital?
Manmohan Sharma
As far as working capital are concerned we are not have any immediate plan to any kind of fundraising fund-based capital. But we are always depend on the non-fund-based working capital limits. So that will be going forward also will remain that only.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And as you have alluded that to achieve the 500 gigawatt in the next five years, we need to perhaps execute 50 gigawatts, 60 gigawatts. But there has been hiccups in the tender-based ordering system. So like how the current situation is looking from your end? How do you see that demand panning up? I mean whether it is really doable by the government that they can execute — I mean, as a whole, we can execute around 50 gigawatt per year. And if it really happens, what sort of market share perhaps Waaree can take within that 50 gigawatt capacity?
Hitesh Mehta
So first of all, very — thanks for asking this very relevant question, Rakeshji. To give some color on the 500 gigawatt of target that India looks at from renewable space, roughly 280 gigawatts should come from solar. As we speak, we have already done around 110 gigawatts out of that. So we have a clear runway of around 170 gigawatt to 180 gigawatt worth of solar over the next five-odd years. So mathematically, we have runway of 40 gigawatt to 50 gigawatt installations minimum level each passing year.
As we say that we have an order pipeline or bidding pipeline of 30 gigawatts, it means we are tracking almost every large order in this country. And we believe that we should continue to do so because we foresee the large-scale EPC play requires two critical items.
Number one is talent, right, which is the kind of people that we have over the last more than a decade in this business. We have created a large talent pipeline.
Number two, the credentials to be able to bid for a large projects. So the ability to be a part of any large projects that India as a country has, Waaree Renewable is well placed to be part of all those projects. And we are happy to share with you that we are very closely tracking the entire 30 gigawatt worth of pipeline. As far as market share is concerned, difficult to quote you a number, but we can definitely give you confidence that we are fully behind the pipeline, the entire team, including the BD team as well as the execution team.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And sir, one more thing, like in the last financial year in FY ’24-’25, what is the total order that has been tendered? And what is the total order inflow to Waaree Renewable Technologies? If we get these two numbers, perhaps we can get some sort of market share that what percentage of the orders we have won, right? So if you can give some color on that in the last financial year, what was those figures?
Hitesh Mehta
So to give you that number and broad understanding, we started the year with an unexecuted order book of around 2.3 gigawatts, all right. End of the year today, we stand at 3.2 gigawatt worth of order book. So there is an incremental one gigawatt worth of order book that we have achieved, number one.
Number two, we’ve also executed 1.5 gigawatt worth of contract throughout this year. So that means we have been able to get around 2.5 gigawatt plus worth of orders throughout this year. If you look at the government data, we have seen a tendering of orders between 30 to 35-odd gigawatts for the ground-mount projects this year. So from that perspective, I think you can estimate the kind of market share that we had. But what’s more relevant for us is that we keep on building our capabilities to share or to a larger set of orders in this country, right? We were tracking solar corporates.
Now we are also tracking very actively the FDRE contract. We are tracking very actively the RTC project that enhances the customer base for us. And hence, the ability to have a larger share cannot be denied.
Unidentified Participant
All right. And the last question, if I squeeze. Like you have mentioned that as a Group, as a Waaree Group, we have around 26 gigawatts of order book. And now my question is being one of the company in the same group, how come our share is only 3.2 gigawatts. Like do we have any advantage that as a group, we are enjoying around 26 gigawatt total order book in other companies. But are we not be able to win those orders, which are being given to the other companies for production of other units.
Hitesh Mehta
I think I’ll clarify here. That 26.5 gigawatt of order book that you see in our presentation is the total order book at the Group level, which includes order book of panels and order book of EPC. Out of that, the EPC order book is 3.2 gigawatts, which is the relevant order book in market for Waaree Renewable Technologies making an [Phonetic] EPC company.
Unidentified Participant
Right. No, what I’m asking is for any group companies, if there is a subsidiary company.
Operator
I’m sorry to interrupt here Rakesh. If you have any further questions, please rejoin the queue so that the management can address as many participants as possible.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Karthik Sharma from Anand Rathi Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Sweta Jain
Hello.
Operator
Yeah, please go ahead.
Sweta Jain
Hi. This is Sweta Jain from Anand Rathi. My question is in line with what the previous gentleman was asking in terms of the 3.2 gigawatts of order book. It’s more to have a brief idea on the breakup of this EPC segment. How much of this order book would be towards orders where we would be procuring the land and dealing with the government agencies for clearances and all? And how much would be just pure, pure EPC where we are not dealing with the land part of it?
Hitesh Mehta
So to answer this, Sweta, we would put it this way. So as we track all type of tenders, be it the PSU tenders or be it the private tender, it depends on the tender requirements, whether it is with land or connectivity. Generally, in the PSU tenders, we have seen the requirement of land or connectivity comes along with it. So in our case also, broadly, if you have to understand, you can assume around 15%, 20% worth of order comes with the requirement of land and connectivity. Rest, almost each and every customer has the infrastructure ready in place while we give an EPC order.
Sweta Jain
Understood. Sir, a follow-up question on this. Would the financial metrics in terms of operating margins and maybe ROCE differ in both the sets of orders?
Hitesh Mehta
Yes. So if you look at our two, three years of numbers, I think you are seeing that because you are a capital-light company, we are an EPC company, we generally work with the discharging of our own capital. So for us, the key operating metrics remains our operating margins, OPM or EBITDA margins, which in our case, we’ve always guided that 15% is a very healthy number for any EPC company to operate at. Fortunately, our teams have been over-performing, and we’ve been able to generate even more than that every passing quarter. But from a perfect team of a standard number, you can assume for a 15% number as a very comfortable number and a very critical operating parameter for an EPC company at this size and scale.
Sweta Jain
Correct. So let’s assume if we secure more of PSU orders where the land and the connectivity becomes critical and that forms a larger chunk of the order book, would you say that this 15% margins could actually inch up to 18%, 20%?
Hitesh Mehta
I really can’t directly comment on that, Sweta, but generally, whenever the scope of work increases, definitely, there is a larger scope of margins out there because we are supplying some additional component.
Sweta Jain
Got that. Got that. Thank you so much, sir. I’ll come back if I want to, thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Ishita Lodha from SVAN Investments. Please go ahead.
Ishita Lodha
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is with respect to the progress on the two gigawatt order that we had received from Jindal Renewables. How much of that was executed in FY ’25?
Manmohan Sharma
Yeah. This order is — we have started executing this order and partially it has been executed during FY ’25.
Ishita Lodha
So it will be completed in FY ’25? [Phonetic]
Manmohan Sharma
No, it will be completed in FY ’26.
Ishita Lodha
Okay. Thank you. That’s it from my side.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Nirav Vasa from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Nirav Vasa
Hello, sir, and thank you very much for the opportunity. Sir, I wanted to understand how well is the transmission network scaling up in India to integrate this much amount of renewable power? Or in other words, I wanted to understand, based on the existing transmission capacity and the way the additions are happening, how much megawatt of renewable power capacity can be integrated in the system on a per annum basis?
Hitesh Mehta
So thanks for asking this relevant question, Niravji. So transmission has been always a key infrastructure that you need when we look at the mode of renewable energy and renewable power. And we have seen a lot of investments both from government and private side to build the transmission infrastructure to scale up renewables. If you see the numbers, like last year, we — as a country, we have done somewhere around 28 worth of gigawatts of the ground-mount projects. And the government’s target is to annually do at least somewhere between 40 gigawatts to 45-odd gigawatts to reach our 500 gigawatt worth of renewables target. So we are seeing equal investments which is required to ensure that the pipeline and the expectations of government comes online.
However, we have also seen the support from new technologies, especially the battery energy storage, which has come up a big way. So how this helps us is — so wherever a project, which is a standalone solar power project, if you add a battery energy storage to that, you reduce a lot of infrastructure requirement of transmission or in other words, you can use the idle capacity of existing transmission lines. So that way, with the combined support of battery energy backed projects, RTC projects and FDRE projects, we believe that we should be able to achieve what government is targeting towards solar, particularly 280 gigawatt worth of installation by 2030. So we don’t really foresee a challenge in achieving that as a country.
Nirav Vasa
So what you are trying to say is there are no major bottlenecks with regards to availability of transmission capacity.
Hitesh Mehta
So what I’m trying to say is transmission has always been a key infrastructure and it had some bottlenecks in the past. But we have seen an equal support in terms of investments by the government and by the private player. Even if you look at the order book of existing companies who are working on transmission and distribution infrastructure, you will see a kind of numbers that justifies the installations and the expectation of installations going higher from here. But I’m also trying to say is with battery energy storage system, the ability to install more solar power becomes much easier. In a way, battery energy system can also be some sort of replacement of a transmission infrastructure in other way.
Nirav Vasa
Yeah, okay. Got it. My second and the final question would be pertaining to our offerings. Sir, as I understand, to make the maximum ROE — maximum return on investment in any integrated or I would say, renewable park, it needs integrated, both wind and solar. So — and our presence is currently more only in the solar part. Do we intend to get into the integrated part of the renewable power?
Hitesh Mehta
So as a group, we have always been very conscious and been looking at the energy transition our entire portfolio. And as EPC company we have never shied away from enhancing our portfolio from solar — only solar project to now FDRE and RTC projects, which includes the project with requirement of battery energy storage. So we are building our capabilities. We are building our infrastructure to ensure that we should be able to continue our share in the market, be it a project with an FDRE or be it a project with RTC requirement wherein wind is an essential part of the project.
Nirav Vasa
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Maitri Shah from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.
Maitri Shah
Yeah, hello. Hello. Yeah. Firstly, congratulations on the great results. I just have two questions. So in the press release, you mentioned expanding into data centers. Could you please elaborate on that?
Hitesh Mehta
So data centers, we have, in fact, done some announcement some time back that we are starting and trying to look into building our capabilities towards the data center projects.
Right now, we are bidding for those projects and we are building our EPC capabilities because it goes well with our size of a company when we are able to do a gigawatt worth of project. And while a lot of new technologies like artificial intelligence need, we are hungry of power and energy. So if you compare a typical Google data center versus an AI data center, the power requirement is at least 10 times higher in AI-driven infrastructure.
Hence, this becomes of imminent important for us as a group that we keep on hunting on opportunities in data center, and we are definitely building our capabilities and hunting for the pipeline of data centers as well.
Maitri Shah
And so we currently don’t have any orders for it, but are we expecting any orders to come in from FY ’26?
Hitesh Mehta
Yeah. We are focusing on building capabilities, which we are doing, and we are also tracking all the projects which are coming up for data centers.
Maitri Shah
And what is the realization for the fourth quarter? So we executed around 500 megawatts, I think, so for the EPC. So around what kind of realization did we get per megawatt?
Hitesh Mehta
It is in the range of about INR1 crore per megawatt.
Maitri Shah
INR1 crore per megawatt. And it will remain around that range for the upcoming year.
Hitesh Mehta
So it depends upon project to project and which type of projects which we are undertaking with the turnkey projects or EPC project. So it will differ from project to project. But broader range, we are — as we are mentioning that it should be in the range of 80 megawatt to 1.2 gigawatt. [Phonetic]
Maitri Shah
Okay, okay. Yeah, that’s it from my side. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jainam Vora from Saltoro Investment Advisors. [Phonetic] Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hello. Congratulations on a great set of results. My question was along the lines of — as we want to maintain 15% EBITDA margins, which is understandable, but our aspiration would be for more. So I wanted to get an idea as to right now, large-scale projects like Jindal INR60 lakh per megawatt basically translates into that. So typically, are large-scale projects essentially low margin?
And what are we doing because like solar rooftop, if I look at that, that’s also another segment where we have done only about 58 megawatts. So what is the kind of strategy behind the kind of mix and the kind of project that we are chasing? And how do we ensure that we — while we — our goal is for 15%, how do we continue to over-deliver on that? If you could give some perspective on that, that would be great.
Manmohan Sharma
See, whatever type of project, which we are undertaking other turnkey project, EPC project, we — and the project which you have mentioned also, we try to maintain the margin in the same range. It could be in the range of what we are projecting and mentioned to you. So whether it is an EPC project, pure EPC project or maybe some turnkey projects where supply is also improved. So we try to maintain same kind of margin, all the projects.
Unidentified Participant
So you’re saying across the projects regardless of the scale, whether it is sub 500 megawatts or whether it is over a gigawatt, you will continue to have similar margins. Is that?
Manmohan Sharma
It is difficult to tell you project by project, what kind of project, two gigawatt project margin, 10 gig is one gigawatt margin project. So — but more or less, we have given you the number.
Hitesh Mehta
Yes, Jainam, but to make it a little simpler for you, you can understand it this way. Any large-scale project, we have been able to maintain margin in the range of 14%, 15% and even more than that. That is in case of a small rooftop C&I kind of project, you can estimate around 200 bps to 300 bps better margins because of sheer smaller size and the cash spending that we’re able to do in those projects. So we are focusing on a healthy mix of both utility as well as C&I projects.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. So within that rooftop solar is one big thing in opening remarks also, I think CFO had mentioned about that. So I wanted to understand what is our vision and strategy behind that? And what are we planning to do, if you could elaborate on this? Also has 400 franchisees retail network. So I think that could also probably add more fire to our sales. Just if you could provide some perspective.
Hitesh Mehta
So particularly about Waaree Renewable Technologies, we do broadly two type of project business segment. One is utility scale of projects, large-scale projects. The typical cycle is beyond 100 megawatts. And the small-scale projects, which even include a rooftop project of maybe two megawatts to five megawatts or maybe ground-mount project between 10 megawatts to 100 megawatts as another segment. We are building our capabilities on utility scale, we have proven on ground that we as a company can get two gigawatts worth of single location project as well, which probably no one might have done until this state in India [Phonetic].
On the small project side, on the rooftop side, we have a special business unit within Waaree Renewable Technologies, which is building capabilities to do more of C&I projects. And we believe that we should be able to replicate what we have been doing in utility scale in rooftop segment as well. While you touched upon on the retailers on the retail model that we have and we have 400-plus franchisee stores.
So basically, these are the extended arm of our holding company, which do distribution of the project, which do distribution of products as well as do small-scale projects between one kilowatt to somewhere around one megawatt and two megawatt, which typically Waaree Renewable Technologies does not focus upon. So that way, the franchisee projects are like typical residential or small-scale SME, MSME projects, while WRTL looks at order between two megawatts, five megawatts up to two gigawatts. Hope that gives a clarification.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. Got it. And one last question. How are we planning to leverage our.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt. Those were your two questions. I would request you to rejoin the queue. The next question comes from the line of Naman Maheshwari from Brescon. Please go-ahead.
Naman Maheshwari
I hope I am audible. Great. Sir, many congratulations for a fantastic set of numbers. The first one is on the BESS opportunity [Technical Issue]
Operator
Naman, you are breaking up. Could you please go to a place where there’s a good network.
Naman Maheshwari
Is it better now? Hello. Is it better now? So the first one is on the BESS opportunity. What I understand is that where a typical solar, the cost per megawatt is roughly INR5 crores. When we do a BESS the cost per megawatt comes to roughly INR10 crores, solar plus BESS project. So is that correct? And if yes, how much is the proportion of EPC increase that would be there for us also in that case?
Hitesh Mehta
So Naman, as you see, like we always say that this market is an evolving market. And every year, we see a new record pricing be it energy storage or be it EPC. So the current normalized number for any typical standalone solar power project at large scale ranges somewhere from INR3 crores to INR3.5 crores all inclusive without a battery storage. So that INR3 crores includes the cost of balance as well. And now we come to [Technical Issue] storage. So until last year, the price of one megawatt worth of solar pack was — storage pack was coming around $200 per megawatt hour. This year, we have already seen price coming down to as low as $60 to $70 per megawatt hour, which is a different level of price action. We never thought this can actually come up.
So that way, the current normalized price with BESS ranges somewhere from INR6 crores to INR8 crores, but it all depends on end consumers’ requirement of peak power number of hours. If customer require, let’s say, two hour of peak power, the requirement of BESS shall be considered accordingly. And if the requirement is, let’s say, round-the-clock power, the requirement of BESS energy storage will be far different and hence the price of project as well. So it depends on the customer want us to do and the kind of power supply that they want us.
Naman Maheshwari
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the one that we had, the 40-megawatt BESS project, that’s the round-the-clock power or that’s a proportion?
Hitesh Mehta
And that’s — so that’s a standalone BESS EPC project where we have to retrofit in an ongoing power project, which is generating power already. You have to just go and attach storage system and integrate storage systems to that and do a loan for that.
Naman Maheshwari
Okay. And there also, the EPC would be about INR1 crores, INR1.5 crores only per megawatt ballpark, plus/minus, correct?
Hitesh Mehta
Okay. So it all depends on price of storage because the price of storage is very volatile. But broadly, you can estimate this given the current prices.
Naman Maheshwari
Okay. And just last one is. There is another competitor in your field, which is at the receiving end of a lot of regulatory mishap. So does this order go into retendering and open up a bigger pie of bid pipeline for us or will we exclude in bidding those orders — bidding for those orders?
Hitesh Mehta
So we refrain from commenting on anything that’s happening in market. But all we focus is on the existing pipeline that is visible to us.
Naman Maheshwari
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Karan Sanwal from Niveshaay. Please go ahead.
Karan Sanwal
I’m audible?
Operator
Karan.
Karan Sanwal
Yeah. Is this better?
Manmohan Sharma
Yes, please.
Karan Sanwal
Yeah, great. Thanks for the opportunity. I wanted to understand like what was the contribution of this utility projects in the full year FY ’24 versus FY ’25 revenue and also in our order book, if you could give at least a brief bifurcation?
Manmohan Sharma
We don’t give this kind of bifurcation detail as far as the customer base are concerned, maybe utility scale or IPP project. It is dependent upon the customer how they choose and what they do with the electricity this plant for the solar plant they are building. It may be for the captive metric for IPP or maybe. So we don’t maintain this kind of numbers.
Karan Sanwal
No, I’m asking about what would be our proportion of C&I versus utility broad number? Is it 15%, 20% or is it more for us?
Hitesh Mehta
So to give you some rough estimate, generally, the large-scale projects take obviously the bigger pie of the entire revenue. So maybe in terms of number of projects, the number of C&I projects is much larger than the number of utility projects. While when it comes to revenue and the outcome of that, the revenue of utility project is much higher than the retail projects.
Karan Sanwal
Okay. And also, one last question. We have been hearing a lot of articles about unsigned PPAs and grid stability and previous participants also touched upon it. So do we foresee any challenges due to the unsigned PPAs in our utility projects or is it not much of a challenge currently?
Hitesh Mehta
So in our case, typically, the EPC project, which we track is generally awarded at a stage when the financing of the project is either secured and along with the PPA as well as the land and connectivity. Post that, the EPC play comes in wherein we chip in as the market player. So for us, it does not directly impact us because in our case, we always hold a decent order book, which gives a visibility of next 12 to 15 months; visibility wherein our customers have secured their reasonable financing as well as the land and connectivity as well as PPA in most of the cases. So as an EPC player, we generally does not have this as a concern until we take connectivity in our scope.
Karan Sanwal
Which would be a very less proportion of the overall business, right?
Hitesh Mehta
Yeah.
Karan Sanwal
Great. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Hitesh Mehta
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Samarth Khandelwal from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Samarth Khandelwal
Hello, am I audible?
Manmohan Sharma
Yes.
Samarth Khandelwal
Thank you. Congratulations on a steady execution. I just wanted to clarify one part. Sir, you mentioned that the cost of setting up a battery energy storage project per megawatt would be around earlier, which was about INR10 crores, now it would be around INR6 crores to INR7 crores. Could you clarify because the number that I got from someone else was significantly lower than that?
Hitesh Mehta
No. So I think we’ll clarify it. So what we said was the cost of energy storage system around a year back was ranging from $200 to $220 per megawatt hour. Now the price has come down to almost as low as $60 to $70 per megawatt hour. As far as EPC is concerned, because majority of cost attributes to the system itself, the energy storage system itself and the component of EPC is following that.
The INR6 crores to INR10 crores is including the solar power plant. So when we look at, let’s say, INR6 crores to INR7 crores with solar, it may have somewhere between two to three years worth of power uplift requirement or peak power guarantees with the battery energy system. Okay, understood. Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Anushka Vora from Vimana Capital. Please go ahead.
Anushka Vora
Yes, hi, thank you for the opportunity and consider my question.
Manmohan Sharma
Yes, please go-ahead.,
Operator
Anushka, you are breaking up. We cannot hear you.
Anushka Vora
It’s better now?
Operator
Yes, please go ahead.
Anushka Vora
Okay. So there is around INR101 crores of capex that has been accounted for. So would this be related to the IPP assets or what has this been used for?
Manmohan Sharma
Yeah. This is for the IPP assets, which the WRT is creating that IPP assets.
Anushka Vora
Sorry, this is for the IPP assets, right? Your voice is.
Manmohan Sharma
Yes.
Anushka Vora
Okay, okay. And from the 30 gigawatt of pipeline that we have, what is the hit rate that you would be expecting?
Hitesh Mehta
So difficult to give you a number, Anushka. But to give you a sense, like last year, as I said, we were standing at order book of around 2.3 gigawatts, where in the pipeline that we were chasing was somewhere between 15 gigawatts to 18 gigawatts. Now we are chasing a pipeline of around 30 gigawatts and standing at around 3.2 gigawatt worth of confirmed order book.
Anushka Vora
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, that would be the last question for today. [Operator Closing Remarks]