'Home market strength plus Middle Eastern demand' has driven a surge in solar PV capacity in India, according to RenewAtlas and Wiki-Solar.
Although US firms continue to dominate the upper tiers of the EPC and O&M rankings overall—and SOLV Energy remains the standout performer with 17.4GW of operational EPC capacity and 19.7GW of operational O&M capacity, placing it at the top of both rankings—the latest reports also highlight the expanding role of Indian companies in both segments.
Data compiled by RenewAtlas and Wiki-Solar indicates that the volume of capacity being developed by EPC companies has grown by 18% compared with last year. Outside China, Indian firms are now recording the fastest expansion among solar builders. As illustrated in the accompanying chart, India's Larsen & Toubro and Sterling & Wilson rank second and fifth, respectively, for operational capacity among EPC contractors.
Among those companies, Larsen & Toubro stands out as one of the world's leading EPC providers. It possesses the second-largest global EPC project pipeline and has accumulated 13.2GW of combined operational and under-development capacity, supported by an operating portfolio comprising 70 projects.
India's vast installed solar PV fleet is already well established. Earlier Wiki-Solar figures confirmed that the country has become the world's third-largest nation by cumulative operating solar capacity. However, de Koning told PV Tech Premium that India's recent expansion has progressed at a pace approaching that of the United States.
“India is now the world’s third-largest solar market, and by our count it added around 33GW in 2025—nearly matching the second-placed US at 35,” explains de Koning, who adds that strong demand from asset owners across the Middle East for new EPC services has opened significant opportunities for Indian firms such as Larsen & Toubro.
“But the leading Indian contractors have also become major exporters: Larsen & Toubro, our biggest capacity adder, has built more in Saudi Arabia (around 4GW) than at home, and Sterling & Wilson works across the Gulf, Australia and Africa,” he says. “So it’s home-market strength plus Middle Eastern demand, rather than any single company’s playbook.”
The chart accompanying the report presents all EPC capacity in India tracked by RenewAtlas and Wiki-Solar. Their analysis also differentiates between EPC and O&M providers that “build big” and those that “build often,” noting that companies generally accumulate substantial portfolios either by completing a relatively small number of very large projects or by developing numerous smaller installations.
Philip Wolfe, founder of Wiki-Solar, said Indian companies are active across both categories of projects, although the country's latest growth has been concentrated “firmly at the large end”.
“Projects above 100MW now account for around 70% of India’s operating capacity, and 300-600MW plants have become common,” Wolfe tells PV Tech Premium. “This growth is driven by frequent national and state tenders, increasingly for Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS)-connected, round-the-clock hybrids paired with wind or batteries.”
Demand for precisely these types of projects was evident in June, when the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) issued a tender covering 1.2GW of solar PV together with 600MW/3.6GWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS). De Koning said batteries have become a “central” feature of India's tender market as policymakers seek renewable electricity supplies that are also dependable. He added in comments to PV Tech Premium that future RenewAtlas reporting will incorporate energy storage in order to monitor this developing trend.
The picture is different for Indian project developers and independent power producers (IPPs), beginning with the observation that no India-based company has established a global presence comparable to Larsen & Toubro's position in the EPC market.
Adani and NTPC occupy seventh and eighth place, respectively, in the rankings for project development capacity, making them the only Indian companies within the top ten. In the IPP rankings, Adani, also ranked seventh, is the only Indian company to feature among the top ten.
Both rankings continue to be headed by companies from countries with longer-established solar industries. US company NextEra Energy tops the project developer table with 21.7GW of operational capacity, exceeding second-ranked Brookfield by more than 7GW. In the IPP rankings, China's State Power Investment holds first place with 17.2GW in operation. Beyond portfolio size, de Koning noted that India's largest IPPs and developers focus almost entirely on domestic projects instead of building globally diversified portfolios.
“India’s large owners and developers—Adani, NTPC, ReNew, Greenko, Tata Power—are almost entirely domestic: between 90% and 100% of their capacity sits in India,” he explains. “Their growth tracks the home market directly. India is unquestionably an attractive destination for new projects, but for these companies it is the destination.”
The dominance of domestic IPPs and developers within India has created abundant opportunities for additional solar deployment, but it has also resulted in a market that is considerably more difficult for international developers to enter.
“Of the capacity we can attribute in India, around 85% is built by domestic firms, and not a single Chinese contractor appears, consistent with how closed that procurement market has been to Chinese participation,” explains Wolfe. “The overseas players that have broken in are almost entirely European: Czech, German and French firms.”
As a result of this contrast between Indian and international companies, some of the world's largest project development pipelines are located outside India, as illustrated in the accompanying chart. Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power possesses the world's largest project development pipeline at 10.9GW, making it the only company in the top 20 whose pipeline exceeds its operational portfolio, yet it has no activities in India.
Brookfield Asset Management, headquartered in Canada and holding the world's second-largest pipeline at 7.9GW, also announced earlier this year that it intends to sell a 550MW operational solar PV project located in Rajasthan, India.
“India is a distinctive market to operate in, with its own regulatory demands,” explains Wolfe. “This is why the big US builders have largely stayed in North America, with exceptions being those with prior international experience.”
“I’d be wary of predicting how any particular company responds, but structurally this has been, and remains, a largely domestic contracting market.”
Regulatory measures including the Approved List of Modules and Manufacturers (ALMM) have also promoted the adoption of domestically produced solar components, providing further incentives for Indian solar companies to invest within the country's own market. As a result, sustaining the current pace of project development and deployment is likely to depend largely on the specialist companies that are already active across India's solar industry.
Originally reported by PV Tech on Jul 21, 2026.
