CleanMax is India's largest renewable energy provider for commercial and industrial customers, operating through two integrated businesses. The power sales segment builds, owns and operates solar, wind and hybrid plants, then sells electricity under long-term PPAs, while the services segment delivers EPC, O&M and transmission for customer-owned assets. As of June 2026, power sales had 3.5 GW operational and 2.5 GW under execution, services had 682 MW operational, and the company served 600 unique C&I customers across 10 states. Its position is dominant in a niche: an estimated 35% share of hyperscaler renewable contracts in India and 14% of the overall C&I market, with 15 years of exclusive focus. The quality shows in margins, RE power sales EBITDA margin reached 84% in Q1 FY27 from 76% a year earlier, gross margin stayed at 92-93%, and SG&A compressed from 18% to 9% of power sales income through operating leverage. This is a contracted annuity business, not a commodity EPC player.
These economics persist because the contracts are built for duration and switching is costly. The average PPA tenure is 23 years with an effective lock-in around 18 years, and 96% of contracted volumes come from customers rated A or above, with 82% from AA/AAA or multinationals. Repeat business is 74-80% of new volumes, and the company reports no ongoing client disputes across more than 1,100 contracts. Replicating the asset base requires transmission capacity, state approvals, site development and qualified counterparties, not just capital. CleanMax already holds 6 GW of contracted capacity and has applied for or has access to roughly another 6 GW of transmission, which is why new entrants cannot quickly match its brownfield execution ability. The credit rating upgrade to AA in 2026 and reduction in weighted average interest cost from 9.4% in April 2025 to 8.4% in June 2026 further widen the cost advantage, while 40% fixed-rate debt insulates the cash flows. These are structural, not cyclical, barriers.
The inflection is demand from data centers and artificial intelligence, plus the conversion of an already contracted backlog. Data and AI customers now account for 42% of contracted capacity, up from 14% two years ago, growing from 260 MW to 2,400 MW. Management has guided to a minimum 1.5 GW of RE power sales capacity addition in FY27, and Q1 FY27 alone commissioned 400 MW of power sales and 100 MW of services, with a trailing twelve-month execution run rate of 1,743 MW. By 1 April 2027, the minimum opex sales capacity should be 4.6 GW, and by FY28 the company expects minimum reported EBITDA of INR 3,000 crores, roughly 2.4x the INR 1,290 crores reported in FY26. The 2.5 GW under execution carries an average tariff near INR 4 per unit versus INR 3.93 for the operational portfolio, so mix is improving. In parallel, the first BESS investment in Rajasthan is greenlit with MOUs signed for three clients, and the 530 MW CTU wind-solar project at Koppal, Karnataka is slated for commissioning in FY26-27. Eighteen to twenty-four months out, the operational base should be above 5 GW, with BESS and new states such as Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand contributing revenue rather than just commitments.
Management's track record supports the targets. In FY26 it added 1,400 MW of RE power sales and contracted another 1,400 MW, fully replenishing the pipeline, and in Q1 FY27 it added 400 MW against the full-year 1.5 GW guide. The May 2026 commitment to reveal a storage strategy in three to four months was met when the Rajasthan BESS project was approved and three client MOUs were signed by August. The FY28 minimum EBITDA of INR 3,000 crores is a repeated public commitment, not a soft aspiration. Capital allocation is disciplined: a second joint venture with Apple for 150 MW has Apple investing INR 104 crores for a 49% stake, while CleanMax retains 51%, and the AA rating enabled plans for a first domestic bond issue. Net debt stands at around INR 9,600 crores, stabilized net debt to EBITDA is 4.3x, and management has described a steady-state net debt of INR 16,000 crores consistent with INR 3,000 crores of FY28 EBITDA. That implies balance sheet leverage is being managed in line with contracted cash flows.
The earnings path is highly visible but not unconditional. Run-rate EBITDA was INR 1,870 crores at 31 March 2026, and the conversion of 2.5 GW under execution at roughly INR 4 per unit is the main bridge to the FY28 minimum of INR 3,000 crores. The key assumption is that curtailment does not spread beyond the known Bikaner CTU project, which is experiencing around 70% curtailment and is expected to affect FY27 run-rate EBITDA by about 13%; if that substation issue resolves, run-rate EBITDA could be 8-9% higher. Another assumption is that hyperscaler customers honor VPPA/EAPA contracts as their Indian data centers ramp, since the contracts may not require physical offtake immediately. The single most important watchpoint is transmission availability and CTU curtailment, because execution capacity, not demand, is the stated constraint. Q1 FY27 reported PAT of INR 55 crores against adjusted EBITDA of INR 494 crores may look weak, but it reflects depreciation and interest from the build-out phase, while RE power sales gross margin and EBITDA margin both improved year over year, indicating an operational rather than structural problem. If curtailment persists beyond FY27 or new state approvals slip, the FY28 EBITDA target will be at risk; otherwise, the data/AI mix, lower financing cost and operating leverage should carry EBITDA past INR 3,000 crores by FY28.
companyname: Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions Limited ticker: CLEANMAX sector: Renewable Energy / C&I (Commercial & Industrial) Power Solutions Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions Limited (CLEANMAX) is India's largest commercial and industrial (C&I) renewable energy provider, a claim the company makes in its own investor materials. The business was founded by Kuldeep Jain and has evolved from rooftop solar into offsite solar, wind, wind-solar hybrid, battery storage, carbon solutions, and EPC se...
Read the full report →capex, margin expansion, order book surge, acquisition inorganic
FY27 RE Power Sales capacity addition guided at 1.5 GW driven by repeat business from existing clients
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