ABB Leads Indian PV Inverter Market

• Solar PV inverter market in India has been captured by international manufacturers, according to a survey by Mercom Capital
• Two European inverter companies hold the top 2 ranks in India: ABB holds the top position with 22% market share, followed by SMA Solar at 18%
  With global leaders from China, Sungrow and Huawei, no even being mentioned on Mercom's list, there is soon more Chinese inverter capacity to be expected in India

Switzerland based global power and automation technology company, ABB leads the pack of solar inverter suppliers in India. Along with ABB, seven other international suppliers currently have captured 96% of this market segment in the Indian sub-continent, according to clean energy research company Mercom Capital Group.

With its solar inverter manufacturing facility located in Bengaluru city (see New ABB Inverter Factory In India), ABB has supplied inverters of a cumulative 3,000 MW capacity until November 2016 and holds 22% of the total market here. As per Mercom, SMA Solar comes next, having shipped 2,400 MW and holding 18% market share, followed by Chint/Astronergy with 2,000 MW inverters supplied and 15%,  TMEIC and Schneider Electric with 1,500 MW inverters supplied and 11% share each.

India is slated to be one among top four solar markets in the world in 2017 along with China, the US and Japan. With China having captured 84% of the total reported $2.34 billion modules and cell imports to India in 2015-16 (see Chinese PV Import Share In India Up), Chinese PV inverter makers are expected to soon capture a much bigger portion of the Indian market. While Chint already takes rank 3 and TMEIC rank 4, global inverter leaders Huawei and Sungrow are not on Mercom's list yet.

However, ABB, the market leader in India recently also won a contract worth $640 million from the Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) to develop a 1,830 km long transmission link in India. It is expected to have a transmission capacity of 6,000 MW to provide power supply to 80 million Indian homes. The power supplied will also be from renewable sources.

Correction: A former version of the article incorrectly stated in the caption that TMEIC is a Chinese company. In fact, TMEIC, which stands for Toshiba Mitsubishi Electric Industrial Systems Corporation, is a 50%-50% joint venture of Japanese companies Toshiba and Mitsubishi Electric.