Part 4 of “My Story” — The Kunwer Sachdev Journey
India’s First Sine Wave Inverter, Solar Home Lighting, and the Birth of “Home UPS”
Three Innovations That Rewrote India’s Power Backup Industry — 2002 to 2005
Kunwer Sachdev
Founder of Su-Kam and Kunwwer.ai, and mentor at Su-vastika and several other companies — the “Inverter Man of India”
📖 Previously: Part 3 — The Plastic Inverter & Fairy Queen | Part 2 | Part 1
🌊 India’s First Sine Wave Inverter (2002)
Square wave vs pure sine wave — the technology leap that Su-Kam pioneered in India
“No Indian company had made a sine wave inverter. I motivated our team, who were not sure whether the product could even work. I was confident we would make it successful.”
In 2002, every inverter in India produced a square wave or modified sine wave output — harsh, noisy power that could damage sensitive electronics. I wanted to build something radically better: a pure sine wave inverter using DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology.
I created two competing R&D teams — both racing to build the same product. In competition, both teams delivered. The first model was 24V, bulky, and generated a lot of heat in battery mode. But it worked. We kept improving until we achieved a single-battery sine wave inverter — compact, efficient, and producing power purer than the grid itself.
The man behind the breakthrough: Jagdeep Chauhan
Jagdeep Chauhan was the engineer who made India’s first DSP sine wave inverter a reality at Su-Kam. His work changed the trajectory of the entire Indian inverter industry. Every sine wave inverter sold in India today traces its lineage back to what we built in our lab.
🏅 First R&D Recognition
Su-Kam became the first inverter company to receive R&D recognition from the Dept of Science & Technology (2004). This changed the R&D landscape for India’s entire inverter and UPS industry.
⭐ First BEE 4-Star Inverter
We made the first inverter to get BEE four-star certification — at a time when nobody in the industry even thought about inverter efficiency.
📰 “Inverter Man of India”
It was during this period that a magazine gave me the title “Inverter Man of India” — a name that stuck and defined my identity ever since.
☀️ Solar Home Lighting System — Bringing Light to the Powerless
The Su-Kam Solar Home Lighting System — a solar panel, compact battery unit, and two lights
The Solar IV system — reliable, beautiful design after a year of iterations
On a foreign visit, I discovered that the Chinese had made small solar home lighting systems selling in huge volumes worldwide — for places with 10-12 hours of no power. But their systems were unreliable. I brought a sample back to India and told my R&D team: “We need to make this better.”
We designed a system with two small lights and a radio — but the real challenge was making it look attractive. The ecosystem of suppliers was always challenging — no one wanted to develop new components. It took almost one year of design changes before we had a beautiful, reliable product.
This was Su-Kam’s first step into solar — a journey that would eventually lead to megawatt solar projects, solar hybrid inverters, and the first Solar Online UPS.
🏠 The Birth of “Home UPS” — A Name I Gave to the Industry
The Su-Kam Digital Home UPS — metal chassis with plastic front. The product that created an entirely new category.
💡 Three Problems, One Brilliant Solution
Problem 1: Imported plastic granules were getting expensive, making plastic inverters unprofitable against cheap metal chassis.
Problem 2: Customers wanted to run computers and TVs on inverters, but the switchover time was too slow — screens would go black during power cuts.
Problem 3: Inverters carried 12% sales tax, making them expensive.
My solution: Create a new product category called “Home UPS” — metal chassis with plastic front, near-zero switchover time, classified under the UPS HSN code at just 4% tax.
My R&D team was completely against this idea. They feared it would backfire. But I took the risk. I pushed them to reduce the switchover time until computers and TVs worked seamlessly through power failures.
We launched it in 2005. The result? Within one year, the entire industry renamed their inverters to “Home UPS” to compete with us. The category I created became the industry standard. Even fans and lights worked without blinking. IT dealers started selling our product. The tax advantage was a bonus that made every dealer want to stock it.
I didn’t just make a product. I created a category that the entire Indian industry adopted.
💡 LED Indications — Inspired by an Airplane
The airplane overhead panel that inspired Su-Kam’s LED indication system
The Su-Kam Shark 900 — LED display, bold design, the evolution of innovation
Innovation can come from anywhere. On a flight, I looked up at the overhead panel — the seatbelt sign, the no-smoking light, the air conditioning controls — all using simple, clear LED indicators. I thought: why can’t our inverters communicate with users the same way?
We designed a new LED indication system that told users everything at a glance: mains status, inverter mode, battery charging, low battery, overload. Simple, intuitive, beautiful. The Shark 900 was one of the models that embodied this design philosophy — bold aesthetics combined with clear user communication.
📖 Next in “My Story” Series
Part 5: Building the Empire — 6 Factories, Reliance Investment & Going Global
How Su-Kam grew from a single factory to 6 manufacturing plants, attracted investment from Reliance and Temasek, and exported to 90+ countries.
🔗 Related Stories
- 👤 My Story with Jagdeep Chauhan — The Man Who Invented India’s Sine Wave Inverter →
- 👤 My Story with Sanjeev Saini — The Man Who Built Su-Kam’s Mind →
- 📖 India’s First Solar Online UPS — The Full Technical Story →
- 📖 How Su-Kam Came to File 77 Patents →
- 📺 Su-Kam Brainy Eco — Solar UPS with Bluetooth (YouTube) →
- 📖 Su-Kam Power Systems — Wikipedia →
- ◀️ Part 3: The Plastic Inverter & Fairy Queen →
Disclaimer: This article is written by Kunwer Sachdev, mentor of Su-vastika. Kunwer Sachdev is no longer associated with Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd. in any capacity. Anyone dealing with Su-Kam should be aware that Kunwer Sachdev has no association with the Su-Kam brand or company. All photographs are from the author’s personal archives.
Kunwer Sachdev
Founder of Su-Kam and Kunwwer.ai, and mentor at Su-vastika and several other companies — the “Inverter Man of India.” Read his story →
