Cadel Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a young Bangalore-based company designing, manufacturing and marketing instrumentation for electrical energy management and conservation, the starting point for which is metering. Indiamarkets spoke to Anand V. Hattangady, Managing Director and K Rajagopal, Director-Marketing, about the venture, and the dynamics of the metering business.

indiamarkets: Could you tell us about the origin of Cadel Technologies?
Anand V Hattangady & K Rajagopal: Cadel Technologies was established in 1999, by a group of promoters with complementary strengths, all relevant to the field of energy metering. The central idea was to leverage the promoters' strong linkages in the industry, to build a successful business in digital metering, an area which offers excellent potential for growth in India. The core team at Cadel Technologies was formerly with a leading player in energy management products in India. Our Chairman, Vasanth Rao is a pioneer in the field. Cadel Technologies is involved in designing, manufacturing, testing and marketing digital metering products. Our intimate knowledge of the industry and the market is the key to business development as well as operational aspects. . Of late there has been talk about SSIs being marginalised by large companies. This happens because in a small unit generally one person is responsible for running the whole show. At Cadel Technologies we are trying to ensure synergy by networking across people with complementary strengths.

indiamarkets: What is Cadel Technologies' product range?
AVH & KR: Cadel Technologies is into digital instrumentation for electrical energy management and conservation. This ranges from basic meters at the lower end to sophisticated centralised networks at the higher end. In such networks, various instruments installed at locations across a factory are networked with a central PC based station, enabling centralised monitoring and control. Our customer profile is mainly medium and large industries and OEMs like panel builders who supply industrial HT and LT panels, genset panels, generation, transmission and distribution panels, etc. The products also find application in test benches and laboratory equipment.
 

              Digital power and energy meter                           Digital Voltmeter
 

indiamarkets: What role does electrical energy metering play in industry?
AVH & KR: With electrical energy becoming scarcer and costlier by the day and production equipment becoming more sophisticated and sensitive to the quality of electricity supply, metering, analysis and control of electrical energy usage plays an increasingly important role in optimising energy usage and reducing energy costs. Today, in many industries, electrical energy cost forms a substantial part of operating cost, and the scope for savings is immense.

indiamarkets: What are the benefits offered by digital panel meters over their traditional electro-mechanical counterparts?
AVH & KR: Electro-mechanical meters are essentially indicating instruments. They are comparatively cheaper and adequately meet elementary needs such as monitoring the health of t he electrical system. But in today's situation, where cost control is a major need, there is no alternative to digital instrumentation. Accuracy of measurement, reliability of operation, multi parameter monitoring capability, networking capability and integrating analysis and control with metering are essential pre-requisites to realising energy economy.  Electro-mechanical instruments do not provide any of these facilities.

indiamarkets: How severe is the competition from imports in this field?
AVH & KR: Competition from imported products is inevitable in a liberalised environment. We believe we can hold our own against competition. At the higher end, imported products have two main drawbacks – Indian operating environment (both physical and electrical  supply quality) and prices that are prohibitive for most Indian customers.