Indosol Solar, a subsidiary of Shirdi Sai Electricals Limited (SSEL), has begun the production of photovoltaic (PV) modules at its manufacturing facility in Ramayapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

The company will invest ₹13 billion (~$155.78 million) in developing the initial phase.

The facility is built on 30 acres of land and is currently equipped to manufacture 500 MW of fully automated solar PV modules with different glass-glass and glass-back sheet combinations, including TOPCon (tunnel oxide passivated contact) and HJT (heterojunction technology) modules.

Once completed, the company claims the facility will be the world’s first fully integrated quartz-to-module manufacturing plant, with a final capacity of 30 GW upstream and 20 GW downstream facilities.

The project, envisaged to be developed in phases over the next five years, aligns with Indosol’s commitment to herald India’s boost to domestic manufacturing under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program.

The company secured PLI for 10 GW under two tranches, worth ₹5.1 billion ($619.5 million) for manufacturing high-efficiency PV modules. In 2021, SSEL was awarded a PLI of ₹18.75 billion (~$229.03 million) for a capacity of 4 GW to set up the integrated manufacturing plant.

As per the company’s timeline, phase 1A of the project will be completed by December of this year and will have a manufacturing capacity of 500 MW of modules, cells, and ingot wafers. The entire Phase 1 of the project, which entails a capacity of 5 GW and an investment of ₹15 billion ($1.8 billion), will be completed by 2025.

Indosol will also internally produce raw materials, such as 5 GW of glass panels for the modules. The total capacity is targeted by 2028.

The integrated project will require 8,348 acres of land.

“Once the full scale of operations of our integrated project is achieved, Indosol Solar will have a positive economic impact on up to 100,000 people while creating direct and indirect employment for over 32,000 people in the state of Andhra Pradesh,” said Sharat Chandra, CEO of SSEL.

Last March, the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) disbursed ₹139.4 billion (~$1.69 billion) under Tranche II of PLI to eligible companies, including SSEL, to manufacture 39.6 GW solar modules.