India’s solar EPC company Sterling and Wilson, a part of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, has emerged as the second largest utility solar scale EPC players in the global market after market leader China’s TBEA Co, according to the latest IHS Markit‘s Solar EPC and O&M Provider Tracker report.
“Sterling and Wilson climbs to second position by doubling its annual installations as a third-party EPC contractor, mainly in India but also in the Middle East,” the report said.
In IHS’s global EPC and integrator ranking 2017 that excludes Chinese market, Sterling and Wilson has emerged as the leading player. Indian company is likely to remain on the top position going forward, the report said, based on announced projects to be built in 2018 and 2019 as Sterling and Wilson has secured several large construction contracts in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and is also securing new contracts in Australia, the United States and Spain.
The 2017 ranking also has two major India’s solar sector players – Tata Power and Greenko Group - taking ninth and tenth positions respectively. Adani, which has been on the 10th position in 2016 ranking, hasn’t make it to 2017 ranking.
According to Ashish Khanna, Executive Director and CEO of Tata Power Solar, while the company has been an established manufacturer and supplier of solar products for global market, and despite it is one of the leading EPC players in India, it has not really done any significant EPC projects outside India except for one or two projects.
“India has its own pluses and minuses, so is any other market outside India. As an EPC contractor you depend a lot on the environment, which includes issues like commodities and local installers. We first like to be fully established in India and then go out, it also depends on the type of opportunity you get,” Khanna told BusinessLine.
Sterling and Wilson, Greenko and Adani Group did not respond to queries.
Back in India, industry experts note, EPC companies have benefited from unprecedented capacity addition in the past several years. Even though during the current fiscal the capacity addition as well as tendering activity for new project has been muted, there are enough of opportunities in the domestic market. Indian market has been seeing both consolidation and scaling up trends where large EPC companies have succeeded in signing large contracts.
The combined market share of the five largest EPC companies has grown to 52% from 46%, IHS report suggests. Sterling Wilson has been leading the Indian market with 10-15 per cent market share, according to various rankings, followed by L&T, Mahindra Susten, Tata Power and other majors.