PVTIME – Arctech, the world’s leading tracking, racking, and BIPV solutions provider, announced its first joint venture manufacturing base in India, Jash Energy has entered into trial operation. The manufacturing base of 3GW capacity will serve as part of the company’s effort to ease the pressure of global supply chain disruption intensified in the first half of 2022 with COVID-19 in mainland China, logistics, and raw material challenges among others.
Located in Mundra Gujrat, the largest private port in India, Jash Energy is gifted with a top-notch logistic facility. The coastal state of Gujarat has easy accessibility to the Western, Middle East, and African markets. Mundra also provides an ideal base for traders due to its relatively short logistics connectivity to the north-western hinterland. It is easily accessible from all major industrial destinations in Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh for the export of cargo.
The factory of 16 acres is equipped with a manufacturing capacity of 3GW, with all major components of the company’s well-acclaimed solar tracker productions including posts, torque tubes, purlins, and fasteners produced from its fully automatic production lines.
“By applying the fully automatic production lines, we can stay agile and make fast adjustments to the current supply strategy, increase productivity, stay competitive, and prepare for the future—including for unprecedented events, such as a pandemic. It also helps accelerate the adoption of India’s Industry 4.0 solutions.” Remarked by Gail Chen, General Manager, East Asia, and India at Arctech, board director and CEO of Jash Energy.
The company has added more than 200 jobs for the local community by establishing this factory, and technological training for Indian local employees has been planned to help upscale the technical expertise of the workers.
Gail stressed that Jash Energy in India has created more than jobs in the country. “Not only was there additional job creation, but we are also planning to go deeper in vertically integrated production plan including using steel for trackers that were made in India. So that’s very exciting. “
Arctech plans to work with local steel manufacturing partners for the development of solar trackers. The use of local manufacturers for Indian steel production needs will also have a significant economic impact, remarked Gail.
As reported by IHS, the global steel prices increased 200% during 2021, increasing tracker product prices by up to 50%. Steel prices are expected to remain 30% higher compared with 2020 by 2023. Opportunities exist for tracker suppliers to gain a competitive advantage by developing innovative solutions to steel procurement, logistics, tracker design, and tracker installation, which can lower PV systems costs.
On the flipside, India has installed 38.7 GWdc of solar photovoltaic (PV) with more than 80% of the modules imported from overseas suppliers since 2016, the large dependence on module imports has prompted the government of India to accelerate its support for local manufacturing in the past few years. A new round of measures announced in July 2021 includes a basic customs duty (BCD) on imports and a PLI scheme in order to help scale up the domestic manufacturing industry and increase domestic manufacturing competitiveness in upcoming years.
The company had its debut Indian project in 2015. Now Arctech has accumulated 3.9GW shipment across 50+ projects in the country.
Despite the pandemic disruption in India, Arctech struck a deal with one leading Indian developer to supply 1.7 GW of 1P SkyLine trackers to two projects in Rajasthan in 2020. The 860MW AEML solar power plant is the largest bifacial tracker power generation project in India.
Wood Mackenzie’s annual report shows that Arctech has maintained strong momentum in India in 2020, According to the report, Arctech topped the ranking in the Asian Pacific region with a 35% market share, aided by unparalleled leadership in the Indian solar market. The company has maintained the number 1 tracker supplier in the region for three consecutive years.
“The opening of the JV factory has marked Arctech’s determination on practicing long term localization strategy in India, we will continue to enhance our presence to reduce the region’s dependence on traditional and costly sources of energy,” Remarked Gail.
