Bengaluru-headquartered green energy major Emmvee Group, a pioneer in solar energy having launched the country’s first solar water heaters way back in 1992 under Solarizer label that became the largest solar water heater not only in India but also in Europe, now a leading manufacturer of solar modules and cells, is on a massive expansion spree investing `5,500 crore in a greenfield gigafactory at Devanahalli in Bengaluru. In an interview with TNIE’s Benn Kochuveedan, group founder chairman DV Manjunatha Donthi, tells the new plant, spread across 100 acres is 5x bigger than the present facility, will make it the largest integrated player. Edited Excerpts:
How has the supply-chain disruptions following the Iran war hit you? How much of the raw materials are imported?
As of now our industry in general and our operations in particular aren’t impacted due to the war. Most sourcing is from China and there is no issue from there. Currently our import dependency for wafers, ignots and glass, is around 35%. Earlier, we used to import all cells from China. Now, domestic cell manufacturing has picked up. We’ve a 2.9 gw of cells capacity. We're nearly trebling the cell production to 8.90 gw by March 2027. That apart, we are also increasing our modules capacity to 16.3 gw by this December from 10.3 gw now.
What is the capex going into the expansion and how are you funding it?
We’re investing Rs 5,500 crore into these projects spread across a little over 100 acres. We are zero debt company, so 40% or Rs 2,200 crore of the capex is equity-funded and the entire debt of Rs 3,300 crore is funded by the Ireda.
When you began you used to ship out your entire production, primarily to Europe. Now what’s the revenue break-up?
Yes, you are right when we started off in 2006, solar power was not popular here while it was hugely popular in Europe. So we were shipping out our entire production till 2014 to Europe, mostly Germany. But now we don’t ship out a single module or cell. After government set solar energy goals, our market just exploded.
Given the very long warranty of 30 years that the industry offers, how one distinguishes itself and make the market? Based on the warranty claim ratio? What’s your claim ratio?
Yes, primarily the claim ratio is something that makes a company superior. While Chinese panels and cells also offer 30 years warranty, they’ve higher claim ratio than most others. Our claim ratio is as low as 0.008, which is one of the lowest world-wide.
Though now domestic production almost fully meets the panel demand, that’s achieved mostly on imported materials. Why we don’t have an ecosystem developed even after so many years?
Yes, earlier we’re importing all solar panels but now domestic production almost fully meets demand but as you said rightly with mostly imported materials. Backward integration is yet to take off in our country. But let me assure you if all goes well, from 2028 Emmvee should be filling that missing link as we are on course to begin manufacturing the critical ingots and silicon wafers. You’re one of the sectoral pioneers. What prevented you from going in for full backward integration all these years?
See China operates on a different level. The kind of incentives and protection that they offer to their manufacturers nobody else can match. We can also very well have scale and even pricing power to beat the Chinese if we are fully backward integrated but we also need the kind of protection that that China offers to their companies. What we need is government support towards risks mitigation. Even sans any fiscal incentives we can match Chinese pricing where there is no duty whatsoever, and the difference between domestically manufactured modules and Chinese made is less than half-a-cent to one-cent per watt.
