New breed calling the shots in Indian solar sector

Call it ‘Old order changeth’ or anything something else but the fact is that new market leaders have been taking centre-stage in country’s solar sector since last year. Eight of 10 categories saw the emergence of new leaders. The latest report on India Solar Market Leaderboard 2023 by Mercom India introduced these new leaders. Avaada Energy was the leading utility-scale solar developer commissioning the most projects during the year, followed by NTPC Renewable Energy and Adani Green Energy. Sungrow was the top solar inverter supplier in 2022 and also the top string inverter supplier. FIMER India was the leading central inverter supplier. Jinko Solar was India's leading module supplier. Adani Solar was the only domestic manufacturer that made it to the top five. Scorpius Trackers was the top supplier of solar trackers during the year. Purshotam Profiles topped the list of solar module mounting structure suppliers, accounting for over 38 per cent of the total market. Goodluck India and Strolar Mounting Systems came in second and third for module mounting structure suppliers. Solabot Technologies was the top supplier of solar robotic cleaning systems to the Indian market.

Mind you that the report covers market share rankings and provides a comprehensive view of the competitive landscape across the Indian solar supply chain in the calendar year (CY) 2022. Besides emergence of new leaders in the sector, this also highlights significant changes in market share in a year heavily impacted by policies like basic customs duty and approved list of models and manufacturers. Several new companies debuted in the top ten listing, which reflects a dynamic solar market with significant market opportunities. With domestic manufacturing receiving a strong push from the production-linked incentive program, we anticipate the emergence of more new leaders this year.

Significantly, India added 13 GW of solar capacity in CY 2022, a 27 per cent increase from the nearly 10 GW installed in CY 2021. India aims to install 280 GW of solar by 2030. Cumulative solar installations currently stand at nearly 63 GW. India had a 58 GW utility-scale solar project development pipeline and 51 GW of projects tendered and pending auction, as of December 2022. In 2022, utility-scale installations accounted for over 87 per cent of overall solar installations, with over 11 GW. Solar accounted for nearly 82 per cent of the total power capacity additions in CY 2022, the highest ever for any year. The top ten utility-scale project developers accounted for 65 per cent of projects installed in 2022. When it comes to rooftop solar, over 1.6 GW of rooftop solar capacity was added. In 2022, the top ten developers accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the rooftop solar market. Quite significantly, unlike in other segments, in rooftop solar segment, old warhorse and seasoned campaigner- Tata Power Solar led the list of rooftop solar developers, accounting for almost 27 per cent of total installations.