Su-Kam Falcon HBU: India’s first high-frequency inverter — the first 4-star Home UPS, in a patented plastic body

The Falcon HBU — Falcon High Backup UPS — is the product that proved an Indian company could out-engineer the high-frequency inverter, make it pay for itself on your electricity bill, and still make it beautiful.

1 India’s first high-frequency inverter — and it’s patented

At the time, China led the world in high-frequency inverter technology. Su-Kam set out to build one for India — with better technology, made at home. The Falcon HBU is the result: India’s first high-frequency inverter, powered by a special compact transformer that minimises energy losses, giving up to 90% efficiency and low harmonics. We filed a technology patent for the bidirectional inverter technology at its heart. You can read the human story behind it in our profiles of CTO Sivarajan Ramachandran and Vikas Garg.

2 It’s a UPS, not just an inverter

The “U” in HBU is the point: this is a UPS-grade home backup. When the power cuts, the Falcon HBU switches on instantly — the changeover is so fast, and the unit so noiseless, that you genuinely do not realise the grid has gone. It is also the first of its kind to show you the exact backup time left on its display, so you can manage your load through a long outage instead of guessing.

3 India’s first 4-star rated Home UPS — what it saves you

For the first time in the history of the Indian power-backup industry, a home UPS was efficient enough to earn a 4-star energy rating from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) — and it remains the only home UPS in the market to deliver 90% efficiency. Here is what that efficiency looks like in real numbers, straight from the comparison in the video above (tested on a 150Ah / 12V battery):

It even saves you at the moment of purchase: because the Falcon HBU converts energy so efficiently, a 100Ah battery on it performs close to a 150Ah battery on an ordinary inverter — so you can buy a smaller, cheaper battery and still get the backup you need. All told, the video puts the saving at about 25% on overall running costs.

4 A good-looking, patented plastic body

Look at the Falcon and you will notice it does not look like the grey metal box that used to sit ashamed in a corner. We made it as a plastic-body inverter using a different technology altogether — and to be clear, this was a newer, different plastic body, not the first plastic inverter we built (that one came years earlier). It is moulded from better plastic granules engineered to withstand heat, so the body stays safe and stable even as the electronics work hard inside. The body design is patented. Unlike metal, it will not rust, it is lighter to handle, and it is safer in a home.

And because an inverter lives in your home, we made it good-looking — designed in different colour schemes so it fits the room instead of hiding from it.

5 The smart features inside

India led on this one — first high-frequency inverter, first 4-star home UPS, a patented design in a good-looking plastic body. That is the Falcon HBU, and that is the kind of product I built Su-Kam to make. — Kunwer Sachdev

6 The benefits, in one place

• Up to 90% efficiency — the most efficient home UPS in India
• Saves about 0.8 units of electricity every day on charging
• Up to 3 hours of extra backup on the same battery
• Run a smaller, cheaper 100Ah battery in place of a 150Ah
• About 25% lower running cost than an ordinary inverter
• Instant, silent UPS switchover — you never hear the cut
• Six-stage DT-6S charging for a longer battery life
• Patented, rust-free plastic body in multiple colours

7 Why it was a perfect product — and a big achievement for India

This is the part I care about most. Around this time, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) was working to bring efficiency standards to India’s inverter and UPS industry. To hit those numbers — both in charging and in the inverter itself — there was really only one way to design the product: it had to be a high-frequency inverter / UPS. A high-frequency design is what makes 90% efficiency physically possible.

But here was the hard part, and the reason this mattered so much. The product also had to work in Indian rural areas, where the power is brutal on electronics — the frequency is not stable and the voltage fluctuations are very high. High-frequency inverters are sensitive to exactly these conditions. The two high-frequency designs we had built earlier failed twice in the field, precisely because rural power was so erratic. To finally make a high-frequency inverter that stayed efficient and survived real Indian conditions — that is why the Falcon HBU was, to me, a perfect product made in India.

8 I was the crusader for BEE star-rating — but alas

I will be honest about this, because it still stings. I was, in truth, the crusader for BEE star-rating of inverters in India — personally involved in the Bureau of Energy Efficiency committee set up to make energy standards for inverters. I believed then, and I still believe, that a mandatory efficiency standard would push the whole industry to build cleaner, better products and save the country an enormous amount of electricity. But alas — that inverter standard still has not been implemented to this day.

The proof of how far ahead we were is simple: even today, no other company claims a 4-star rated inverter — let alone reaches for a 5-star category that does not yet exist. The Falcon HBU showed it was possible years ago. The standard to make that efficiency the norm for every Indian home is still waiting.