Large players dominate India’s Solar Market Leaders for 2017: Mercom

Mercom Communications India, a subsidiary of global clean energy communications and consulting firm Mercom Capital Group, has released its report, India Solar Market Leaderboard 2018. The report covers market shares and shipment rankings across the Indian solar supply chain in 2017.

In 2017, India emerged as the third largest solar market in the world behind China and the United States, having grown at a CAGR of approximately 170 percent since 2010.

India set a new record with 9.6 GW of solar installations in 2017, which was more than double the 4.3 GW installed in 2016. The robust growth boosted the country’s total installed capacity to 19.6 GW as of December 2017.

“In 2017, larger players started consolidating their positions at the top as India has quickly emerged as one of the most important solar markets in the world for suppliers and vendors,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group.

Key highlights from the report

• In 2017, the top 10 developers accounted for 62 percent of all large-scale installations with Greenko leading the way. Adani was the leader in terms of all-time cumulative installations at the end of 2017. NLC India had the largest development pipeline followed by ACME.
• Cumulative solar rooftop installations in India totaled 1.6 GW at the end of 2017. With 995 MW installed in 2017, Tata installed the most rooftop projects in 2017 followed by CleanMax.
• Sterling and Wilson was the leading EPC developer cumulatively and in 2017.
• Among inverter suppliers, ABB was the top company in 2017 and leads in cumulative shipments.
• Trina Solar was the top module supplier to the Indian solar market in 2017.
• Adani led in solar cell and module manufacturing capacity among Indian manufacturers.
• NEXTracker was the top supplier of trackers to the Indian solar market.

As of the end of 2017, large-scale project development accounted for 92 percent of the all-time cumulative solar installations in India with 19.6 GW and 2017 alone made up 90 percent of the solar installed with 8.6 GW.

According to the report, the top 10 solar photo voltaic (PV) project developers in the country accounted for over 62 percent of all large-scale project installations in calendar year 2017. In India, there are approximately 200 utility-scale project developers with projects of at least 5 MW or more in operation.

Adani was the largest project developer in terms of total cumulative installations at the end of 2017, but Greenko was the top installer during the year.

NLC had the largest pipeline of large-scale projects under development followed by ACME. India’s pipeline of utility-scale projects under development stood at approximately 10.6 GW at year-end 2017, with another 4.3 GW of tenders pending auction.

Turning to the rooftop sector, cumulative solar rooftop installations in India totaled 1.6 GW at the end of 2017, of which 995 MWs were installed last year. In 2017, the top 10 installers made up only 26 percent of all rooftop projects installed in India, leaving all other rooftop developers with almost 75 percent of the market share, showing the fragmented nature of the sector. Tata Power emerged with the largest rooftop portfolio, followed by Clean Max.

“A common theme in the report was that most of the top companies in their categories were well established players, but it is important to see the growth rate and trends of up-and-coming companies that are battling for their share of this highly competitive market,” added Prabhu.

In a market where margins are getting tighter every day, Sterling and Wilson was the leading engineering procurement construction (EPC) company both cumulatively and in 2017.

As of last December, ABB was the top inverter supplier both cumulatively and in 2017 with Chinese inverter suppliers growing at a fast pace. Trina Solar was the top module supplier in 2017.

Over 30 companies supplied trackers to the Indian solar market in 2017, but NEXTracker proved to be the top supplier.

 (Source: Mercom Group)