Indian company Waaree Energies has been eyeing Australia for some time and now appears ready to make its move. Perhaps we will add to the company’s selection of solar panels for residential installation.
In a filing with the National Stock Exchange of India, Waaree Energies Limited said it has established a new wholly-owned subsidiary in Australia named Waaree Renewable Energies Australia Pty Limited. The subsidiary was incorporated on December 6, 2024 and has its registered office at Parramatta in Sydney.
There is no press release from the company mentioning this yet, so there is little information beyond the filing at this point about Waaree’s exact intentions. The filing simply states that “this subsidiary will focus on the renewable energy business in Australia” – and that’s pretty broad.
More about Warree Energies
Waaree Energies Limited was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Mumbai. Not only does the company claim to be India’s largest solar panel manufacturer (12 GW capacity), but it also claims to have the largest total installed capacity in the country at 12 GW as of June 30, 2024. Waaree also offers grid-tied and off-grid inverters. The manufacturing facilities are located in Chikhli, Surat, Tumb and Nandigram in Gujara on the west coast of the country.
The company also has a new module factory in Brookshire, Texas, USA. The plant will initially have an annual capacity of 3 gigawatts and is expected to be increased to 5 GW by the end of 2027. The company had previously shipped modules to the US, which was its main export destination. According to Waaree, more than 5.1 GW of its modules have been shipped to the US market. When the company announced the Texas plant in late 2023, it said it would invest up to $1 billion over the next four years to expand its U.S. operations.
The company currently produces TOPCon, mono-PERC, polycrystalline and flexible solar modules. At the time of writing, there are no Waaree modules listed on the Australian Clean Energy Council’s list of approved modules. As such, it may be a while before we see the company’s products here if it plans to make them available for residential and other installations. For PV modules to be eligible for the Australian solar rebate, CEC approval is required.
Beyond manufacturing solar panels and inverters, Waaree is one of India’s turnkey EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) and O&M (Operations and Maintenance) providers for local C&I and utility projects.
Synergies from India and Australia
In late November, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the launch of the “expanded” India-Australia Renewable Energy Partnership, which will see the two countries work together in eight key areas; These include solar PV (already underway) and solar supply chains. This happened at the second annual Australia-India 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 potential for cooperation”.
It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to assume that Waaree might consider getting involved in manufacturing here if it can get support under Australia’s $1 billion Solar Sunshot Initiative. There is nothing to stop foreign companies from making a breakthrough if it results in a majority Australian-owned joint venture and is done under an Australian company incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001.
In October it was announced that Australian company SunDrive would lead an application for funding from Sunshot in a joint venture with Chinese company Trina Solar.
That being said, and with Australia’s residential solar panel market very crowded, there may be an opportunity for Waaree to supply Indian-made panels to utility projects across the country or undertake large-scale PV projects of its own here; either alone or in a joint venture. A large part of the current panel range is in the area of utility applications.
As far as I know, no major Indian solar module manufacturers are currently exporting to Australia. The closest thing to this is the REC Group, which was taken over by the Indian Reliance New Energy Limited in 2021 – however, REC retains its headquarters and production in Singapore.
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