The ‘Solar Man of India’ positioning of Kunwer Sachdev — how the founder of Su-Kam Power Systems moved from India’s biggest inverter brand to becoming one of the most-quoted voices on solar and battery storage.
Kunwer Sachdev is best known as the founder of Su-Kam Power Systems — the company that pulled Indian inverters out of unbranded workshops and turned them into a mass-market category. But over the last decade, a second title has stuck: the Solar Man of India. This press-archive entry captures the arc of that positioning — how a maker of home-inverter hardware ended up shaping the vocabulary of Indian rooftop solar.
From Su-Kam to Solar Man of India
Su-Kam was, at its peak, in over 90 countries and held a record for filing more than 120 patents in the power-backup space. The natural next question for Sachdev was: if you already own the wire between the wall and the appliance, why should you not also own the panel that puts the power in? That question is what turned him into a solar advocate — not just a solar seller.
The ‘solar-ready inverter’ idea
Sachdev’s signature technical push in the solar era was the solar-ready inverter: a standard household backup unit that could be upgraded to a solar setup after the fact by adding a charge controller and panels — instead of forcing the buyer to throw away what they already had. It is a retrofit-first philosophy that fits Indian buyers, who almost never rip out a working appliance.
“The country needs to take a leadership role — if we want to realise the dream of becoming the Renewable Energy Capital of the World.”— Kunwer Sachdev, on the ‘Solar Man of India’ press circuit
Why the ‘Solar Man’ label stuck
Two things fixed the label. First, Sachdev built one of India’s earliest grid-tie inverter product lines, letting a rooftop feed the grid instead of just backing up the home. Second, he became one of the few founders in the sector willing to speak on record about what was not working — complicated subsidy paperwork, net-metering delays, DISCOM resistance in some states — and to keep pushing for a single, unified clearance process for solar installations.
The next chapter: storage, and Su-vastika
Post-Su-Kam, Sachdev has extended the same argument into battery storage — mentoring Su-vastika Systems, which now designs and exports lithium-based backup, lithium testers and hybrid inverters. The ‘Solar Man of India’ positioning has quietly widened into ‘Solar + Storage Man of India’ — because dispatchable rooftop power, not just panels, is what actually replaces diesel.
Solar Man of India — Facebook press-coverage archive →