Major Indian Solar Manufacturer Sets Its Sights On Australia

India’s Waaree Energies has eyed Australia for a while, and now appears ready to make its move. Perhaps we’ll have the company’s solar panels added to the smorgasbord of choices available here for residential installations.

In a filing submitted to the National Stock Exchange of India, Waaree Energies Limited stated the company had incorporated a new wholly-owned subsidiary in Australia named Waaree Renewable Energies Australia Pty Limited. The subsidiary was incorporated on 6th December 2024 and the location of its registered office is in Sydney’s Parramatta.

There’s yet to be a press release from the company mentioning it, so past the filing there’s little information available at this stage exactly what Waaree’s intentions are. The filing only states that “this subsidiary will focus on renewable energy business in Australia” – and that’s rather broad.

More About Warree Energies

Founded in 1990, Waaree Energies Limited has its headquarters in Mumbai. As well as claiming to be India’s largest solar panel manufacturer (12GW capacity), it also lays claim to having the nation’s largest aggregate installed capacity of 12 GW as at June 30, 2024. Waaree also offers grid-connect and off-grid inverters. Its manufacturing facilities are located in Chikhli, Surat, Tumb, and Nandigram in Gujara on the country’s western coast.

The firm also has a new module factory in Brookshire, Texas in the USA. The facility will initially have an annual capacity of 3 gigawatts, with intentions to increase it to 5 GW by the end of 2027. The company had previously shipped panels into the USA, which was its major export destination. Waaree says 5.1+ GW of its modules have been supplied to the US market. In late 2023 when announcing the Texas plant, the company stated it planned to invest up to USD $1 billion over the next four years to scale up its US operations.

Currently, the company manufactures TOPCon, mono PERC, polycrystalline and flexible solar panels. At the time of writing, there are no Waaree panels listed on Australia’s Clean Energy Council’s approved modules list, so it may be a while before we see the company’s products here if it intends to make them available for residential and other installations. CEC approval is required in order for PV modules to be eligible for Australia’s solar rebate.

Beyond manufacturing solar panels and inverters, Waaree is one of India’s turnkey EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) and O&M (Operations & Maintenance) providers for local C&I and utility-scale projects.

Make In India, Made In Australia Synergies

In late November, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the launch of the “elevated” India-Australia Renewable Energy Partnership, which will see the two countries co-operate in 8 key areas; among which are solar PV (already under way) and solar supply chains. This occurred at the second Australia-India Annual Summit on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The Prime Ministers noted that the countries’ respective ‘Make in India’ and ‘Future Made in Australia’ initiatives have “complementarity and collaborative potential”.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to suggest Waaree may be considering some sort of involvement in manufacturing here if it can get support under Australia’s $1 billion Solar Sunshot initiative. There’s nothing stopping foreign entities taking a crack if it results in a majority Australian-owned joint venture and happens under an Australian entity incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001.

In October, it was revealed Australia’s SunDrive will lead an application for Sunshot funding in a joint venture with China’s Trina Solar.

Other than that and given Australia’s residential solar panel market is really crowded, there may be opportunities for Waaree to supply Indian-made modules to utility-scale projects throughout the country or execute its own large-scale PV projects here; either on its own or in a joint venture. Much of its current panel line-up is in the utility scale range.

As far as I’m aware, there are no significant Indian solar panel manufacturers exporting to Australia at this point. The closest that comes to it is REC Group, which was acquired by India’s Reliance New Energy Limited back in 2021 – but REC maintains its headquarters and manufacturing in Singapore.