Solar Semiconductor, a Hyderabad-based manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) modules, is setting up a solar cell plant at its Fab City campus with an investment of about $100 million (about Rs 490 crore).
According to the company’s vice-president Ravi Surapaneni, the plant will have a capacity of 30 Mw initially and will be ramped up to 60 Mw subsequently. The solar cells manufactured here will be utilised by the company’s PV module-making plant at the Fab City.
At present, Solar Semiconductor has a photovoltaic module-making capacity of 200 Mw a year, including 130 Mw at the Fab City and 70 Mw at Kompally. Both the facilities are dedicated to the export markets in the US, Germany, Spain and Italy.
Solar Semiconductor is expecting the PV modules business to grow at around 30 per cent annually. At present, the international price for PV modules is about $3.5 per watt and the global market for PV products is estimated to be $30 billion, Surapaneni said.
Solar Semi is among the few companies that had started operations at the Fab City, originally a semiconductor cluster but now a PV module cluster. The company will later add thin-film technology for making PV cells. It is also setting up a reliability laboratory at its premises at a cost of $2 million (about Rs 9.8 crore) for testing new material to be used in solar cell making, which will be ready in about two months.
The company is also pursuing some international private equity players for raising funds to be used for the operations here, Surapaneni said, while declining to elaborate further.
He said the company was certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent product safety certification organisation, as a high-wattage PV modules manufacturer. UL India sales and marketing director Manish Bhatnagar said the products of Solar Semiconductor have adhered to the prevailing international safety standards. The certification will allow Solar Semiconductor to access wider markets.