Sterlite Electric Limited

Start with a power line Picture a 400 kV transmission line from Delhi to Agra. A developer, say Adani Energy Solutions, wins it in a tariff-based auction. Adani will own that line for 35 years, collect a regulated transmission charge every month, and book it as an infrastructure asset. But Adani doesn't make anything. Somebody has to manufacture the aluminium wire strung between the towers, the earth wire on top that absorbs lightning, the cable that goes underground when the line enters Delhi, and the substation gear that steps the voltage up and down. That somebody is Sterlite Electric. And the interesting part is that until two years ago, Sterlite was Adani's competitor, not its supplier. The pivot Until October 2024 the company was called Sterlite Power Transmission, and it did both things: built and owned transmission lines (in India and Brazil), and manufactured the conductors and cables that went into them. The asset business is capital-hungry, slow to pay back, and needs a utility-sized balance sheet. The manufacturing business is lighter, faster, and sells to everyone, including the developers you would otherwise bid against. So the company demerged the asset business into a separate entity (Sterlite Grid 5, now Resonia), kept the factories, and renamed itself Sterlite Electric. FY26 is the first clean, full year as a pure products-and-solutions company. Everything below is about that continuing business. Where the products go: the four platforms Back to Delhi–Agra. Sterlite runs four business lines, and each one has a spot on that line.

1Overhead conductors and OPGW (56% of order book). The conductor is the aluminium wire itself, the biggest bought-out item on a line after towers. Sterlite makes plain conductors, but its pitch is high-performance ones: AL59 alloy and HTLS varieties (ACCC, ACSS, GAP) that carry more current on the same tower. AL59 alone was ~55% of conductor revenue in FY26, and the company claims roughly 20% of India's conductor market. OPGW is the earth wire at the top of the tower with optical fibre inside; every EHV line needs one.

2Power cables (27%). When the line enters a city, it goes underground. Sterlite makes 66–220 kV EHV cables today, has its first 400 kV order, and has built a plant designed for up to 550 kV. It also sells "IntelliSENSE" monitored cable systems: cable plus sensors plus turnkey installation.

3Master System Integration (11%). If the corridor already exists and the developer wants more power through it, Sterlite's services arm does reconductoring, grid uprating and GIS substation execution. This is the EPC layer, kept deliberately small.

4Convergence (6%). Once the line is live, spare fibre inside the OPGW is leased to telcos and data centres as dark fibre. Sterlite does this on its own network (23,000+ route km of OPGW, 73 colocation sites, access to 19,000+ towers) and via PPP deals with utilities. Adani pays Sterlite once for the hardware, earns a manufacturing margin, and moves on. The 35-year annuity stays with Adani. That is the trade Sterlite made: give up the annuity, gain the volume. In FY26, conductors and cables together were ₹4,807 crore, or 77% of revenue. EPC was ₹1,164 crore. Convergence's lease income was ₹119 crore. This is, first and foremost, a factory business.