Pennar Industries was the top supplier of solar mounting structures in India, both in cumulative terms and in 2018, according to Mercom’s India 2019 Solar Market Leaderboard. SNS Corporation and Ganges Internationale were the second and third largest mounting suppliers.

The solar mounting structure market has grown along with solar installations over the years and is dominated by engineering and design companies that were previously focused on telecom and transmission structures and other commercial construction businesses. Solar has quickly become a fast-growing segment of the business for these companies.

According to mounting suppliers, solar is a highly competitive business with many new entrants, some of whom are new to the industry with suspect quality of products. Labor availability is another big challenge for some of the smaller suppliers. We expect consolidation in the space in the coming years.

Recent extreme weather has exposed low quality mounting structures, and during cyclone Fani, images and videos of ripped off solar structures were widely shared. Mounting structures need to withstand the weight of the components as well as high wind and extreme temperatures depending on the location. Mounting structures are typically made from aluminum or stainless steel, either cold pre-galvanized or hot dipped galvanized.

With the ultra-competitive solar auctions, and to meet the needs of cost focused EPCs, many suppliers claim that the industry is moving towards cheaper structures with the standard thickness decreasing from 3mm-2mm to less than 1mm in thickness.

According to Mercom’s India 2019 Solar Market Leaderboard, there are over sixty suppliers of solar mounting structures active in the Indian market by the end of 2018 in a highly fragmented space.

Headquartered in Hyderabad, Pennar Industries has its manufacturing plant for solar mounting located at Tarapur, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

Pennar’s market share was almost 15% at the end of 2018 and was the top mounting structure supplier.

Following closely on the heels of Pennar was New Delhi-based SNS Corporation with a 12% market share among solar module mounting structure suppliers in 2018.

Among the top ten solar mounting structure suppliers in India, Ganges Internationale was third in ranking with a market share of 9%.

Cumulatively, ten mounting companies have shipped over 1 GW. In 2018, two companies shipped 1 GW or more in mounting structures, and three other exceeded over 500 MW in shipments.

The top 10 mounting structure suppliers accounted for 65% of the market share, while the other 50 suppliers accounted for the remaining 35%.

 Mercom’s India 2019 Solar Market Leaderboard report goes into detailed breakdowns of top developers, their growth rates, and shipments.

A complete list of mounting structure suppliers and their market share in India is available via Mercom India’s Solar Market Share Tracker.

Soumik is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Prior to joining Mercom, Soumik was a correspondent for UNI, New Delhi covering the Northeast region for seven years. He has also worked as an Asia Correspondent for Washington DC-based Hundred Reporters. He has contributed as a freelancer to several national and international digital publications with a focus on data-based investigative stories on environmental corruption, hydro power projects, energy transition and the circular economy. Soumik is an Economics graduate from Scottish Church College, Calcutta University.