Waaree Energies To Start TOPCOn Cell Production From April 2025

Indian solar module manufacturer Waaree Energies is all set to start producing TOPCon-based solar cells from April this year. The company’s top management is optimistic about its plan to commence TOPCon cell production at its proposed solar cell plant soon.

In its latest investors’ call, Amit Paithankar, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Waaree Energies, said that the Mumbai-based company has already started trial production of its mono-PERC-based cell line.

“Our cell factory is on the path to full-scale production, with pilot production already underway. The 1.4-gigawatt Mono PERC lines are in advanced stages of trial production, and we should commence full-fledged commercial operations very soon (within days). The remaining 4-gigawatt TOPCon lines will also be operational by the April-May timeframe,” he told investors.

Waaree Energies, a winner of the government’s Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, is also set to commission its 6 GW integrated ingot, cell, and wafer manufacturing facility in Odisha, likely by 2027. Other plans moving along include Green Hydrogen (electrolyzer business), solar inverters, and power infrastructure, among others.

The firm believes that with the government’s thrust on domestic production, data security, and an expected rise in demand for inverters in the Indian solar market, Waaree’s venture into the inverter business could significantly boost the conglomerate’s revenues in time.

Waaree’s Take on Trump’s Election and Its US Business

The company admitted that potential interference with the benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could affect profit margins for its newly opened solar module manufacturing facility in America. However, it stated that its business models are designed to be self-sustaining, even without external support.

“Our objective is to create operations that can thrive independently without being dependent on external factors. Our U.S. operations are structured to be profitable on their own merit. That being said, if the IRA or a similar program continues in some form, it will undoubtedly provide significant additional benefits to the business,” Paithankar said.

The company, touted as India’s largest solar module manufacturer, is now buoyed by a massive order book of 26.5 GW, valued at approximately Rs 50,000 crore. However, the company noted that although international orders dominate its order book, the majority of its annual revenue comes from the domestic market. It attributed this to variations in order velocities.

How Do U.S. Market Orders Affect Waaree’s Revenues?

Waaree Energies stated that roughly 55% of its orders are from overseas, while 45% come from India. However, despite this, only 21% of its sales profile is from overseas, whereas 79% is from India.

Paithankar elaborated on the reasons behind these variations. “In India, the velocity of orders is high. For retail customers, it is in the range of one to two months, and for large utility customers, it is nine to 12 months. For international orders, particularly in the U.S., we have longer timelines, in the range of one to two years. And that’s the reason why our sales mix does not reflect the kind of order mix we have. In fact, we can use the order book as a lever to maximize the utilization of our factories and profitability,” Paithankar explained.

“So, for India, retail is almost book-to-ship. You book it and ship it within a month or within two months. Large utility orders are typically booked and then shipped in nine to 12 months. That’s the dynamic in India. But for the U.S., it’s anywhere between one to two years, and some orders take even 2.5 years. That’s why our sales profile does not necessarily mimic the order profile,” he added.

Another issue where he shed light was the misunderstood understanding of module capacity versus actual output for most manufacturers. Paithankar stressed that actual output was typically 75-80% of rated production capacity, adding a little more colour to understanding India’s surging module capacity as well as cell capacity, that he expected to grow to between 45-50 GW by year end.