THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | ENERGY STORAGE | 2009
It was 2009. The world was just waking up to renewable energy. India was in the middle of a power crisis — load shedding, inverters humming in every home, batteries being the backbone of backup power for millions of families and businesses.
And while everyone was busy selling batteries and inverters, I was asking a different question.
Why do batteries in a series string die unevenly? And what can we do about it?
The Problem Nobody Was Fixing
When you connect batteries in a series string — say, four 12V batteries to make a 48V system — they don’t age at the same rate. They never do. Even tiny differences in temperature, internal resistance, or manufacturing tolerances cause charge imbalance over time.
Once that imbalance starts, it snowballs. The weak batteries get weaker. The strong ones get overcharged. The whole pack degrades — and most people just replaced the batteries and moved on.
This was accepted as a fact of life. I refused to accept it.
The Invention: Su-Kam’s Battery Equalizer
In 2009, Su-Kam developed India’s first Battery Equalizer — a patent-pending, bi-directional circuit that continuously balances the voltage across batteries connected in series, during charging, discharging, and even idle periods.
What made it remarkable:
- Patent-pending technology that reduced size, cost and weight
- Could equalize up to 4 batteries (4 × 12V) in a standard configuration
- Worked with Gel, Sealed, AGM and conventional flooded lead-acid batteries
- Simple wiring — five output leads (0V, 12V, 24V, 36V, 48V)
- Reverse polarity protection built in
The Numbers That Changed Everything
Our testing data told a clear, undeniable story:
Without equalization → Battery pack reached end-of-life after just 140 cycles.
With Su-Kam’s Battery Equalizer → The same battery pack delivered over 400 cycles — nearly tripling the lifespan.
3× battery life. That is not an incremental improvement. That is a transformation.
The Economics Were Undeniable
- Battery pack without equalizer: ₹34,000 — warranty of 1.5 years
- Battery pack with equalizer: ₹36,000 — warranty of 3 years
- Battery replacement cost over 3 years without equalizer: ₹17,000
- Battery replacement cost with equalizer: Zero
- Net saving for the customer: ₹15,000 over 3 years from a ₹2,000 investment
Built for Every Application
- Home inverters (Falcon, Smiley series)
- Small industrial and commercial complexes
- Large industrial installations (15KVA 3-phase inverters)
- Elevator and lift backup systems
- Telecom tower backup power
We validated it in the field at Reliance Tower, Delhi — documenting real-world performance data.
Why This Matters in 2026
Battery management is now one of the hottest topics in the world. EV manufacturers, solar storage companies, data centres — everyone is talking about how to make batteries last longer. We were solving this in 2009 for homes in India. The physics does not change.
The Lesson for Today’s Entrepreneurs
- Do not just sell what exists. Question why the problem exists in the first place.
- The best markets are the ones nobody is looking at yet.
- Technology that saves the customer money will always find a market.
- File patents early — protecting IP is as important as building the product.
“When I built the Battery Equalizer in 2009, nobody was asking for it. But everyone needed it. That is the space where real innovation lives.” — Kunwer Sachdev
A Note on My Journey Since Then
I want to be transparent with my readers. These innovations were built during my time founding and leading Su-Kam Power Systems — a company I started from scratch and built into one of India’s most recognised power backup brands.
Su-Kam subsequently went through insolvency proceedings and was declared bankrupt. I am no longer associated with Su-Kam Power Systems in any capacity.
But the ideas, the inventions, and the lessons from those years belong to me — and to the thousands of engineers, dealers, and customers who believed in what we were building together.
Today I continue building — through Su-vastika, through Delhi Angels, and through my work mentoring the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs. The spirit of innovation that drove Su-Kam lives on in everything I do.
“The company may be gone. The knowledge, the patents, the lessons — those can never be taken away.” — Kunwer Sachdev
Kunwer Sachdev | Founder, Su-vastika | Delhi Angels Mentor | kunwersachdev.com