Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions Q2 FY27 Earnings Call: Reiterates Rs. 3,000 Cr FY28 EBITDA Guidance, AI/Data Clients Now 41-42% of Volume (CLEANMAX)

Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions Ltd held its Q2 FY27 earnings call on November 03, 2026. Here's a quick read of what management said — performance, strategy, and the outlook ahead.

Strong H1 Print, Sixfold PAT Jump Off a Low Base

• H1 FY 2026-2027 EBITDA of Rs.1,047 crore — up 56% from Rs.670 crore in H1 FY 2025-2026; Q2 FY 2026-2027 EBITDA was Rs.553 crore vs Rs.386 crore in Q2 FY 2025-2026.
• H1 FY 2026-2027 revenue from operations grew ~67% YoY — RE power sales EBITDA rose to Rs.986 crore from Rs.620 crore (revenue roughly doubled); RE services EBITDA rose 20% to Rs.61 crore from Rs.52 crore.
• H1 FY 2026-2027 PAT of Rs.120 crore — ~sixfold higher than Rs.19 crore in H1 FY 2025-2026, though off a low base.
• RE power sales EBITDA margin at 84% — vs 83.5% in March 2026 (FY 2025-2026), driven by constant gross margin and lower SG&A as a share of segment revenue; management expects this operating leverage to continue as it expands.
• Curtailment cost ~5% of H1 FY 2026-2027 EBITDA — management stated growth would have been 61% instead of 56% absent Bikaner grid curtailment.
• Execution discipline held — H1 FY 2026-2027 projects commissioned at ~95% of budgeted cost despite war-driven commodity, diesel and supply-chain inflation; the prior three fiscals (through FY 2025-2026) ranged 95-97%.

6.3 GW Contracted, ~20-Month Order Book, 1,500 MW/Year Run Rate

• 6.3 GW of RE contracted power sales at Q2 FY 2026-2027 — 3.6 GW operational and 2.6 GW contracted/under execution; 600 MW commissioned in H1 FY 2026-2027, with 80% of H1 additions in Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
• Aggregate portfolio (including evacuation pipeline) reached 13,200 MW as of 30 September 2026 vs 7.8 GW 18 months prior; evacuation received stands at 3,200 MW (vs 1,100 MW 18 months ago, ~3x growth) and applied-for at 2,800 MW.
• 2.6 GW contracted-under-execution book — roughly 20-21 months of future growth at the 1,500 MW/year addition pace; STU solar is contracted for delivery within 9 months and wind within 15 months, so management does not expect multi-year backlogs (which would signal delayed power delivery and LD/contractual-liability risk).
• ~475 MW of new contracts won in H1 FY 2026-2027 (analyst back-work, confirmed by management), largely SCU-based group captive and rooftop solar serving offices, bulk material companies, data centers and automotive clients.
• Management did not commit to a timeline for graduating the run rate beyond 1,500 MW/year toward 2 GW+, saying only that a rising order book would indicate faster execution; SCU + rooftop is contracting/executing at ~1,100-1,200 MW/year (~100 deals/year).
• Unit economics lead the industry — tariff on capacity under execution is ~Rs.4/unit for a 50% solar / 50% wind mix with no/low storage, vs ~Rs.3.1 for comparable utility SECI contracts; management attributes the premium to its C&I positioning.
• Repeat business share of new PPAs rose to 85% in H1 FY 2026-2027 — from 75% in each of FY 2024-2025 and FY 2025-2026; 600+ corporate clients, 83% rated AA/AAA or multinational, with a 23-year weighted average PPA tenure.

41-42% AI/Data Mix; CTU Capacity Sold Out to September 2028

• Data/AI customers are 41-42% of overall volume (Q2 FY 2026-2027); of the ~6,200 MW portfolio, ~27-28% is with hyperscaler clients (Amazon, Google, Meta type), with colo clients including NTT, STT, Equinix and Iron Mountain.
• Clean Max holds a 35% market share of aggregate hyperscaler energy volumes contracted in India to date (as of Q2 FY 2026-2027), diversified across multiple deals over multiple years with each hyperscaler.
• All CTU-connected capacity till September 2028 is already sold out — after the 30 September 2026 cut-off, the company applied for a further 2 GW of CTU connectivity to replenish available capacity.
• Hyperscalers prefer CTU-connected wind-solar hybrids in South India — per management, to address curtailment risks perceived in regions like Kutch and Rajasthan and to sit near hyperscalers' own South India data centers; contracts retain flexibility at the customer's sole discretion between direct offtake vs green-attribute use, with identical tariffs locked for 20-25 years.
• Data center RTC math (page 8 of the Q2 FY 2026-2027 presentation) — 1 GW of data center capacity requires ~3 GW of wind, ~3 GW of solar and ~2.5-3 GW of energy storage, substituting ~75% of the data center's electricity demand and entailing ~Rs.40,000 crores of capex.
• No signed data-center agreements yet — management confirmed no agreement incorporating the full wind+solar+BESS package has been signed; it is bound by SEBI guidelines to disclose material agreements upon signing, and said sales conversations are at a record high. Management declined to give guidance on timing or megawatt volume of new customer contracts.
• Management view on industry demand — India's current 2.3% share of the AI data center/compute factory market is expected to rise as compute factories shift to India (US already tough and made tougher by recent midterm elections, Europe difficult to build in quickly, Middle East and China ruled out on geopolitical grounds) — a management view on industry demand, not a company target.

AA Upgrade, Green Bond Done, Fixed-Rate Mix Cushions Rate Risk

• Net debt of Rs.13,838 crore at Q2 FY 2026-2027 — gross block Rs.15,182 crore and CWIP ~Rs.6,700 crore as of 30 September 2026; Rs.6,074 crore of debt sits against projects operational for over a year, which generated ~Rs.717 crore of EBITDA in H1 FY 2026-2027 (net debt/EBITDA below 5x on both measures).
• CRISIL upgraded the company to corporate AA in Q2 FY 2026-2027 — placing it on par with JSW Energy and Adani Green; the first green bond of Rs.2,500 crore (also AA rated by CRISIL) completed in September 2026, fixed-rate with strips from 2 to 10 years at ~8.6% weighted average cost.
• Weighted average cost of debt fell to 8.3% — 8.2% at the project level and 8.3% at the corporate level in H1 FY 2026-2027, vs 8.8% corporate-level borrowing at the start of FY 2026-2027; every project has historically been modeled with at least a 8.75% cost of interest.
• Post-bond debt mix: 53.7% fixed / 46% floating as of Q2 FY 2026-2027; management flagged expected interest-rate hardening over the next few quarters, noting the RBI has already raised rates in the recent quarter.
• Management is planning for at least a 100 bps increase in the RBI repo rate or overall borrowing cost (period unspecified) — given the 50% fixed-rate mix, this would translate into a 50 bps impact, taking project finance cost from 8.2% to 8.7%, still within the 8.75% underwriting ballpark; management does not expect a material impact on equity IRRs in the long run.
• H1 FY 2026-2027 operating cash flow was approximately negative Rs.2 billion — driven by a bulky vendor payment for wind turbine deliveries funded via a loan drawdown (capital creditors flowing through operating cash flow, per CFO Nikunj Khodawat); payable days fell from ~334 in FY 2025-2026 to ~134 in Q2 FY 2026-2027, with ~135-140 days the normalized run-rate.
• ~Rs.170 crore of cash tax paid in H1 FY 2026-2027 — CFO Nikunj Khodawat said it should be viewed as income tax payable as per law; MD Kuldeep Jain explained the holding company bears primary cash tax on standalone income (investment income plus EPC and other group services), factored into asset underwriting.

Bikaner-2 Timing Outside Company Control; Maharashtra Night-Solar Rule a Modest Risk

• Bikaner curtailment improving steadily — 70% in Q1 FY 2026-2027 → ~50% in Jul-Aug 2026 → 44% in Sep 2026 → 26% in Oct 2026 (Q3 FY 2026-2027); management framed the inverse as an asset ramp-up.
• Bikaner 2 (Beacon A2) timeline uncertain — no update on full CTU connectivity; management said timing is completely outside company control as the grid still has to finish building a relevant substation and some lines going into UP are delayed at the grid's end, making it "tough to really forecast."
• Koppal on track — no transmission bottlenecks; Bay 1 (evacuating ~220 MW) commissions in Q3 FY 2026-2027 (Oct-Dec 2026), though generating-side commissioning may lag; Bay 2 (300 MW) has no ROW risk and, after a site visit ~10 days prior, management said the grid is likely to complete it in January 2027 and it will definitely be operational within FY 2026-2027.
• Maharashtra has disallowed use of daytime solar power in the night — applying the change prospectively only; management's theoretical analysis of retrospective application across all states puts the risk at only 2% of fleet EBITDA to date, which it believes is addressable by selling affected power to other offtakers.
• Weighted average tariff declined from 4.2 to 4.04, then to 3.98 currently — MD Kuldeep Jain attributed the movement to quarter-on-quarter solar/wind mix in the aggregate reported portfolio and currency movement; ~20% of the overall contract portfolio is dollar denominated, so currency can impact the weighted average tariff slightly every quarter.
• Blended portfolio PLF has averaged 19-20% over the last couple of years through Q2 FY 2026-2027, vs presentation segment PLFs of solar 25%, wind 35% and hybrid 45% (AC basis); MD Kuldeep Jain clarified capacities are reported on a DC basis (divide AC-basis PLF by 1.5x), citing a trailing 12-month solar PLF of 28% on an AC basis as of Q2 FY 2026-2027. No forward PLF guidance was provided.
• On business risks, MD Kuldeep Jain did not enumerate specifics — describing the question as too broad for a first interaction and directing the analyst to the "very current" risk section in the DRHP (Clean Max listed in March 2026, FY 2025-2026).

FY27 and FY28 Guidance Reiterated; Wind Mix Rising

• Minimum 1,500 MW of new capacity addition in FY 2026-2027 — guidance reiterated; trailing-12-month addition already ~1,400 MW.
• Minimum reported EBITDA of Rs.3,000 crore in FY 2027-2028 — guidance reiterated; at ~5x net debt/EBITDA, management illustrated ~Rs.15,000-16,000 crore of net debt against that FY 2027-2028 EBITDA.
• Company growing at ~50% on both capital expenditure and EBITDA in FY 2026-2027 — management is balancing growth against the hardening rate environment.
• Management expects that even if rates rise ~50 bps over the next 6 months (H2 FY 2026-2027 into FY 2027-2028) — the weighted average rate would not cross the level at which FY 2026-2027 began, due to H1 initiatives.
• Wind IRRs viewed as "equal or better than solar" at the current juncture as wind's portfolio proportion increases, with wind tariffs "quite higher" than solar (qualitative assessment; no numeric IRR disclosed on the Q2 FY 2026-2027 call); hybrid mix is set by client demand-profile fit and delivered price/savings.
• DCR/ALMM2 module procurement of 100-150 MW planned for Q1 CY2027 (Jan-Mar 2027) — management is deliberately holding off final orders until the last moment given the possibility of a timeline extension; prices are already factored into volumes built from CY2027 onwards (no IRR impact) and higher capex is being passed through to future tenders.
• BESS has begun with STU-connected customers — including a farm under construction with some storage and additional contracts in Maharashtra; management foresees storage becoming more important but will not report it as a separate line item until it crosses ~5-10% of overall P&L (no timeline specified).