Based on project capacity commissioned in 2017, Sterling and Wilson has emerged as the leading solar engineering procurement construction (EPC) developer in the country.

The newly released report by Mercom India Research India Solar Market Leaderboard 2018 reveals the market leaders that emerged from a record year for the solar industry. The report covers market share and shipment rankings across the Indian solar supply chain in 2017.

Sterling & Wilson accounted for 12 percent market share and was the top EPC firm in India in 2017 and was the also the top EPC provider in India in terms of cumulative installations.

Sterling and Wilson was the only EPC which had over 1 GW of commissioned capacity in 2017.

“The EPC market was dominated by large firms which occupied the top ten spots and accounted for 63 percent of market share. But, only one company had over 10 percent of market share,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group.

Most large developers have begun executing EPC services in-house on some projects to control costs.

Competition is intense among EPC companies as barriers to entry are low. Cost cutting and poor quality EPC work was exposed when storms affected the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana and damaged solar projects.

Margins for EPC providers is razor thin due to aggressive bidding for EPC services by providers. Several small and medium size EPC providers are struggling.

With approximately 20 GW of solar projects tendered since December 2017, the development activity is expected ramp up as these tenders are auctioned. Solar installations in Q1 2018 totaled 3.3 GW and Mercom India Research has forecasted solar installations in 2018 to come in at approximately in the 8-9 GW.

To learn more about the report and get a full list of market leaders, click here

 For a complete Market Share Tracker, click here

Download Executive Summary here

Image credit: Flickr

Sampath has been part of the Mercom India research and news team since the company’s inception. He currently oversees all data and research relating to news published on the MercomIndia.com platform. Sampath received his Bachelor’s of Commerce Degree from Kuvempu University and Post Graduate Diploma in Management, from Indira Gandhi National Open University. More articles from Sampath Krishna.