‘Livguard is growing at 35% YoY because we’re constantly gaining market share’

Founded in 2014, Livguard was established as a brand under the SAR Group, as an energy storage solutions company that specializes in electronics manufacturing with products such as inverters, inverter batteries, automotive batteries, stabilisers, and solar batteries.

Looking at the year gone by, Rakesh Malhotra, Founder, Livguard says, “The three-quarters of FY25 has been good and we are on a significant growth track. Since inception, in the last 10 years, we as a company have been growing at 35% per cent CAGR. We are at about a 30% growth rate for the year. All segments are firing well, especially the solar and the e-mobility segments which are growing very rapidly for us.”

Coming to the solar business, there is a perception that installing solar rooftops is an expensive affair. However, what has helped the sector has been the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijlee Yojana scheme which provides for a subsidy of 60% of the solar unit cost for systems up to 2kW capacity and 40% of additional system cost for systems between 2 to 3kW capacity.

The subsidy has been capped at 3kW capacity. This works out to Rs 30,000 subsidy for 1kW system, Rs 60,000 for 2kW systems and Rs 78,000 for 3kW systems or higher. The Government scheme has kick-started the market for residential rooftop solar, with the market growth in the residential rooftop segment at around 45% to 50%. Malhotra says, “Today, the affordability is at an all-time high. With the subsidies under the government scheme for a residential consumer with a rooftop to get a solar system installed, the payback times has now shrunk to three-years, that is you can get your entire investment, after the subsidy, back in three years time. Installation of solar system has become mainstream and attractive for consumers to buy. Even without this subsidy scheme, we have reached six years for recouping the investment.”