Two renewable project developers Skypower and Sterling and Wilson have been embroiled in a financial tussle with the latter alleging non-payment of dues for two solar projects.  After the matter was taken to the Delhi high court by Sterling and Wilson, the court has now given an interim order restraining Skypower Solar India from selling two of its 50 MW solar power projects, one at Chhirbel, located in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh and another in Kamareddy village,  located in Nizamabad district of  Telangana.

The court was responding to a petition filed by Sterling and Wilson, a solar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company, against Skypower, a Canadian project developer, under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Shapoorji Pallonji group owns 51 percent of Sterling and Wilson.

Sterling and Wilson, in its petition, has stated that it has supplied equipment worth $34.133 million (~₹2.4 billion) and $31.250 million (~₹2.2 billion) to Skypower for the two solar projects in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana respectively, but has not receive any payment in return from Skypower.

The petitioner argued that there is a serious threat of Skypower selling or transferring the goods such as solar modules, PV inverters and trackers without making any payment.  If this happens, the recovery of the amount would be forever lost and it would cause grave damages to the company, Sterling and Wilson said in its petition.

The next date of hearing has been listed to be January 21, 2019.

In 2015, Skypower had won bids to develop 350 MW of solar projects – 150 MW in Madhya Pradesh and 200 MW in Telangana.

According to the report by Mercom India Research India Solar Market Leaderboard 2018 , Sterling and Wilson emerged as the leading solar EPC developer in the country based on project capacity commissioned in 2017.