Tata Power, Keppel team up for cooling market foray

MUMBAI: Tata Power has entered into a partnership with Keppel, a private equity fund based in Singapore, to venture into the commercial cooling solutions market. The move positions the alliance as a competitor to Voltas, a prominent player in the industry and a sister company within the Tata Group.
Keppel will design and operate centralised cooling systems at commercial and industrial properties, while Tata Power will manage the supply of energy to these systems.
For Voltas, commercial cooling solutions is one of its important business verticals. In 1972, it had developed and deployed cooling solutions for Rajdhani Express, India’s first high-speed train.
Tata Power-Keppel will focus on airports, IT parks, special economic zones, data centres, and other such environments where the aggregation of cooling demand through solutions can help to reduce energy use by up to 40% and cut carbon emissions by up to 50%, the companies said in a joint statement. Though Voltas saw notable growth in commercial cooling solutions across sectors, its margins were under pressure due to input price escalations and intense competition, it said in its FY24 report.
Recently, Keppel bagged its first cooling solutions contract in India from Nucleus Office Parks, owned by buyout fund Blackstone.