Huawei, Sungrow, and TBEA Were the Leading Solar Inverter Suppliers to India in CY 2019
Huawei led for string inverter supply while TMEIC topped the charts for central inverters
Rakesh Ranjan
In the calendar year (CY) 2019, Huawei, emerged as the lead supplier of inverters to the Indian solar market overall, followed by Sungrow and TBEA Energy. ABB and TMEIC rounded off the top five.
These market leaders were revealed in Mercom's recently released report: India Solar Market Leaderboard 2020. The report gives insight into the industry's leaders as well as their market share and shipment rankings across the Indian solar supply chain.
The top five suppliers of inverters accounted for approximately 65% of total market share.
Central inverters continued to be the choice of large-scale solar projects because of lower costs and developers, considering it a proven technology. Still, string inverters are making inroads in the market among consumers because of their flexibility in terms of size and usage. In terms of yearly shipments, string inverters are gaining market share quickly over central inverters.
In Jan 2020, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) extended the deadline for the self-certification of solar inverters by six months from December 31, 2019 to June 30, 2020, considering the unavailability of labs, lack of testing facilities, and workforce. This has come as a huge relief to inverter suppliers. But on the heels of this announcement, the Ministry has issued draft guidelines for standards regarding the technical specifications for solar grid-tied inverters. The Ministry said that the purpose of the standards is to lay down the requirements for the interconnection of photovoltaic systems and inverters to the utility distribution system.
In CY 2019, Huawei was the leading string inverter supplier, followed by Growatt and Sungrow. GoodWe and Solis rounded off the top five for the CY 2019. The top five accounted for 76% of shipments to the Indian market.
In the central inverter segment, TMEIC was the top supplier, followed by Sungrow. ABB (acquired by FIMER), TBEA, and Sineng Electric rounded off the top five.
The top three players accounted for nearly 50% of shipments to the Indian market.
In the first half of 2019, Mercom reported TMEIC emerged as the top supplier of solar inverters to the Indian market with a market share of approximately 20% while Sungrow came in second with a market share of about 16%, followed by ABB at 15%. Huawei and TBEA Energy rounded off the top five spots in this segment. The top three suppliers accounted for nearly 3 GW of solar inverter shipments to the Indian market. Together, the top five companies accounted for nearly 73% of the total market share in that period.
So far, TBEA, Sungrow, TMEIC, and Sineng Electric have established manufacturing facilities in India.
Image credit: Sungrow
Rakesh is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Prior to joining Mercom, he worked in many roles as a business correspondent, assistant editor, senior content writer, and sub-editor with bcfocus.com, CIOReview/Silicon India, Verbinden Communication, and Bangalore Bias. Rakesh holds a Bachelor's degree in English from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.
central invertersHuaweiinvertersMercom Research FocusMNREString InvertersSungrowTMEIC
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