Europe matches rise of solar industry’s Giga-EPCs

Iberdrola team building a solar park. Image by Iberdrola (www.iberdrola.com)

More than 35 of the world’s top solar power station builders have at least 1 GW AC of capacity under their belts – and 20 have now topped 2 GW AC. Wiki-Solar’s latest league table of utility-scale EPCs shows how the prominent constructors have continued to thrive as the market approaches half a Terawatt of capacity.

Renewed growth in the European market has helped German, Spanish, and – most notably – French contractors keep pace with their US and Asian counterparts. “France is outside the top-ten countries for utility-scale solar, but has three of the biggest EPCs, led by Eiffage and Equans, both inside the top six”, says Wiki-Solar founder Philip Wolfe. Equans is now part of Bouygues, following the latter’s acquisition of Engie’s solar construction business.

America’s SOLV Energy (formerly Swinerton) still holds top spot followed by another US constructor, McCarthy Building, at number four. US-based First Solar owes its #2 position to historical installations, and will progressively be overtaken, now it has shed downstream construction activities.

India’s Tata is rising up the table aiming to join compatriots Sterling and Wilson, Acme and Mahindra. Wiki-Solar is gradually overcoming the data limitations, which had led to China’s historical under-representation in its figures, so more companies are expected to join risers CMEC and SPIC in the future.

Amongst notably climbers lower down the list is German company Goldbeck Solar, which has increased its cumulative installed capacity by 50% since the start of 2022.

Readers are reminded that Wiki-Solar measures capacity in MW AC delivered to the grid, including only projects over 4 MW AC. The installed capacities would be roughly 25% higher if measured by the DC solar array output in MWp.

Most, but not all, of the leading operation and maintenance contractors – which Wiki-Solar lists separately – are companies in this top constructors table.

The table below contains the top 10 EPC contractors on the list at Q1 2023. You can find the full list here: https://wiki-solar.org/company/contractor/

Rank	EPC contractor	Operating GW AC	Change since 01-Jan-22 (GW AC)
1	SOLV Energy [US] (formerly Swinerton) (inc.Swinerton Renewable Energy)	10.5	1.0
2	First Solar [US]	4.5	0.2
3	Eiffage [FR]	4.5	1.2
4	McCarthy Building [US]	4.2	1.7
5	Sterling & Wilson [IN] (part of SP India)	4.1	0.3
6	Equans (division of Bouygues) [FR] (inc. Fabricom)	3.1	0.4
7	Belectric [DE] (now part of Elevion)	3.0	0.2
8	Abengoa [ES] (inc. Abener Energia)	2.9	0.6
9	Enerparc [DE]	2.9	0.1
10	ACME Solar [IN]	2.9	0.7

The list of top O&M contractors can be seen here: https://wiki-solar.org/company/maintenance/

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