Premier Energies, a Telangana-headquartered solar manufacturer and engineering, procurement and construction services contractor, has announced its new integrated solar cell and module factory in Telangana will start production within two months. The facility, at Electronic City, near Hyderabad’s airport, is a 25-acre greenfield project.
Built for INR483 crore, the plant will have an annual cell and module production capacity of 750 MW. Premier currently boasts 500 MW of module capacity, and 60 MW for cells, at Annaram village in Sangareddy district.
“The plant’s construction is complete and it is expected to be commissioned by April this year,” said Premier Energies founder and MD Chiranjeev Saluja.
Technology
The factory, described as having a 1.5 GW capacity by the manufacturer, will be able to produce polycrystalline and mono PERC cells on wafer sizes up to 210mm. Its mono PERC output will have an efficiency of 23% and its polycrystalline cells, 19%, according to Premier.
“The capacity is equipped to process solar panels based on wafer sizes starting from 157mm up to 210mm,” said Saluja. “We are also investing in mono PERC+ cells. Going forward, we are looking at topcon [tunnel oxide passivated contact output]. We plan to launch 500-plus W modules by July using India-made cells.”
The company, founded in 1995 and which exports to the USA, Africa and Europe, sees the new production capacity as positioning it among India’s top five solar manufacturers.
The factory will generate 45% of its electricity from a rooftop solar plant and Premier said its automation and robotics levels would be on a par with leading manufacturers in Asia, Europe, and the USA.
Demand
The new facility comes as the manufacturer has reported good revenues, buoyed by robust domestic demand due to the domestic content requirements of state-owned solar projects and a huge national PV pipeline.
“We earned an INR800 crore revenue for the fiscal year 2019-20 and estimate the same level for 2020-21 as well, despite operations [being] hit due to the Covid-prompted lockdown,” said Saluja. “[With the new capacity in place] for the next year, we are looking at almost doubling our revenues, to INR1,500 crore.”
The Premier MD added, India-made modules have achieved cost parity with imports due to the safeguarding duty imposed on some East Asian products.
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India still needs a large…. very very large PV Silicon Ingot Manufacturers…
This is great news… but also very distressing that ingots/wafers are still… imported…