Chinese solar cell and module manufacturer Trina has announced that its cumulative sales in India has crossed the 1 GW mark. Sources say that the company is on track to selling another 1 GW worth of modules in the current financial year.
It is learnt that SBG Cleantech, a joint venture of the Japanese SoftBank Corp, Foxxcon and Bharti Enterprises, is buying 455 MW worth of modules from Trina. SBG Cleantech is putting up a 350 MW project in Andhra Pradesh, which it won in December in a NTPC bid.
In addition, Trina has already shipped 300 MW of modules to India for other customers and is in the process of bringing in another 60 MW worth, sources said.
Trina, and the US thin film module manufacturer, First Solar, are the only two companies to have sold more than a GW of modules each in the Indian market.
On March 31, India had grid-connected solar power capacity of 6,762 MW, nearly half of which was added in 2015-16 alone. Mercom Capital, a market intelligence and communications firm, estimates that 13 GW of capacity is current under construction in the country and another 9GW in the ‘request for proposal’ stage. Mercom expects 5 GW of capacity to be set up in the calendar year 2016. As such, India is one of the biggest markets for solar.
Trina is setting up a $ 500 million manufacturing plant in Andhra Pradesh to produce 2 GW of solar cells and 4 GW of modules. There have been some delay in beginning construction, but nevertheless the plant is expected to go on stream by the end of 2017, sources said.