Top 10 players consolidating solar market in India: Report

According to a report by global clean energy communications and consulting firm Mercom, the rapid pace of growth of solar market has largely been brought about by large players with top 10 companies accounting for 68 per cent market share in 2019.

The 'India Solar Market Leaderboard, 2020' report puts ReNew Power as the top utility-scale developer during 2019, while Azure Power owns the largest project pipeline.

It said that India also had a robust pipeline of utility-scale projects under development of 23.7 GW at the end of 2019, with another 31.5 GW of tenders pending auction.

"The solar market leaders have changed in almost every category compared with last year. With a tough year ahead, we expect strong, resilient, and innovative companies continue to do well," said Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group, the parent of Mercom Communications.

The report reveals that there are around 29 large-scale solar developers with a project pipeline of 100 MW or more in India.

Large-scale solar installations in 2019 accounted for 85 per cent with 6.2 GW. Also, solar accounted for 41 per cent of new power capacity additions in 2019 behind coal which accounted for 44 per cent.

Companies offering engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) services saw a lot of projects moved to 2020 due to delays caused by general elections, land, and evacuation issues, among others. Mahindra Susten was the top EPC player for utility-scale solar installations in 2019, followed by L&T, the report said.

Tata Power Solar had the largest cumulative rooftop portfolio, followed by CleanMax Solar. At the end of 2019, the top ten rooftop solar installers represented 34 per cent of the total rooftop solar market share. In 2019, the rooftop solar market growth came down by 33 per cent compared to CY 2018, the report added.

Huawei led the solar inverter market in India in 2019, followed by Sungrow. Other top string inverter suppliers included Growatt, Solis Inverters, and Delta Power Solutions.

At the end of December 2019, Trina Solar was the leading module supplier to India in terms of cumulative shipments, while Waaree Energies, Adani, and Risen Energy held the top spot in CY 2019. The top ten module suppliers accounted for over 62 per cent of the market in 2019.

Ganges Internationale was the top supplier of solar mounting structures in 2019, followed by Purshotam Profiles and Strolar. Scorpius Trackers was the top supplier of solar trackers in 2019.

Rays Power Experts and CleanMax Solar were the top open access developers as of December 2019.

Ecoppia was the top supplier of solar robotic cleaning systems as of December 2019.