In addition to the existing 500 megawatts (MW) plant in Surat, Waaree Energies has started manufacturing of solar panels at its new 1 gigawatt (GW) facility in Vapi. This will triple its solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing capacity.
Waaree’s focus is on rooftop solar installations. It has already built a network of 250 franchises across India and plans to reach a franchisee count of 1,000 by end-2018. It also has 200MW of engineering, procurement and construction projects in the pipeline.
Last December, the firm had raised Rs 100 crore in structured finance from Centrum Financial Services Ltd and a south-east Asian private equity fund. It reported net profit of Rs 24.22 crore in FY18, marginally lower than the Rs 24.88 crore in FY17.
Waaree has been struggling to compete with cheap imports from China. Dumping by China and the volatility in the rupee are two of major issues that local PV manufacturers are facing. It is nearly impossible to compete with China’s distress selling as their products are selling at a 5-15% discount to locally made products.
Waaree has also tied up with third party equipment suppliers to manufacture batteries and plans to provide energy storage solutions for utility scale (grid-connected) storage products globally as well as for retail solutions in lead acid as well as lithium ion batteries.