ABB surpasses 2 gigawatt solar inverter milestone in India

ABB has announced that it has consolidated its solar inverter leadership in India with 1 GW in new business, doubling its installed base in just five months to support half of India’s 4.1 GW of total installed solar capacity.

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has become the first company in India to surpass an installed base of 2 GW of solar inverter capacity, doubling the 1 GW installed base it had in March 2015 -which was also a country first. The additional 1 GW came from multiple orders from leading solar power developers and from selling components to solar EPCs (engineering, procurement and construction firms).

Earlier this year India Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the ambitious new target of 100 GW solar capacity by 2022 under the country’s National Solar Mission – a five-fold increase over India’s previous 20 GW target.

The targets will be supported by a mix of public and private initiatives, helping to raise India’s energy security and meet annual demand increases of around 7 percent while reducing climate impact. Other ABB landmark projects in India include the world's largest single rooftop solar project, the world's longest canal top solar project and solar installations at all of India’s major airports. In addition to utility-scale central inverters, ABB also supplies locally tailored solutions such as solar powered water pump packages to replace diesel pumps for crop irrigation in rural areas with limited power grid access. Today the company has sold over 5,000 solar pump drives in India.

ABB’s solar business in India is supported by its state-of-the-art Bangalore factory, which opened near the end of 2012 and has continued expanding to meet growing demand. “India is one of the world’s fastest growing solar markets, and ABB has steadily built this business up over the years. This has provided invaluable insights into the local needs and allows us to continue innovating in-country-for-country solutions,” said Pekka Tiitinen, President of ABB’s Discrete Automation and Motion division. “Our Next Level strategy is built around expansion opportunities into promising growth markets and today we can deliver up to 3 GW of inverter capacity from Bangalore each year, supported by local engineering and service expertise.”