First Solar tops Wiki-Solar's solar EPC ranking for 2015, again

Solar panels. Author: Oregon Department of Transportation. License: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic

First Solar Inc (NASDAQ:FSLR) remained the number-one engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for utility-scale solar globally in 2015, with even more megawatts installed than in 2014.

Below you can see Wiki-Solar's latest utility-scale EPC ranking and comments, republished by SeeNews Renewables.

EUROPEAN EPC'S STILL ENJOY EARLY-ADOPER ADVANTAGE

European contractors still play a prominent role in the world market for utility-scale solar projects according to figures released today by Wiki-Solar.org.

Europe slipped to a distant third place when 2015 year-end figures were published recently, but its companies still benefit from the leadership it enjoyed earlier in the decade, with 16 in the world’s top 30 EPC contractors.

EPC contractor (Country)	Capacity (AC)
First Solar (USA)	3,217
Juwi Solar (Germany)	895
Swinerton Renewable Energy (USA)	774
Enerparc (Germany)	757
SunEdison (USA)	680
SunPower Corporation (USA)	474
Activ Solar (Austria)	466
TBEA SunOasis (China)	440
Hanwha Q.Cells (German, Korea)	409
Bechtel (USA)	376
Eiffage (France)	369
Canadian Solar (Canada, China)	363
Amec Foster Wheeler (UK)	358
IB Vogt Solar (Germany)	343
Trina Solar (China)	331
Martifer (Portugal)	318
Phoenix Solar (Germany)	292
Belectric (Germany)	262
Toshiba (Japan)	243
Abengoa Solar (Spain)	241
Gestamp/X-Elio (Spain)	227
Solarcentury (UK)	227
Saferay (Germany)	227
Yingli Solar (China)	217
Conergy of Kawa Group	202
Quanta Power Generation (USA)	195
GP Joule (Germany)	182
SunEnergy1 (USA)	178
Isolux Corsan (Spain)	163
Larsen & Toubro (India)	163

“The leading European contractors have taken the experience they acquired when their home markets were booming, and are now active in emerging markets around the world”, says Wiki-Solar founder, Philip Wolfe. “Some of the prominent North American contractors are doing the same, though others have stuck mainly to their home market."

Wiki-Solar points out that the contributions of some participants, both on and off the list, may be understated, because it holds data on the contractors for only about 50% of projects. “Many of the leading players keep us informed about their contributions”, says Wolfe, “but the involvement of others is likely to be understated, typically by half.” In particular there are likely to be more Chinese companies in the top ranks than the three shown here – Chinese projects tend not to publish details of the EPC contractors – and according to Wolfe, we can expect to see more Indian contractors next time the list is published.

“It’s interesting to see some of the solar module manufacturers diversifying vertically into construction and project development”, he concludes; “but the majority of the companies listed here remain pure play EPC contractors”.

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