By Sethuraman N R
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Waaree Energies, India’s leading solar module manufacturer, is keen to expand its footprint in the world’s largest economy despite an ongoing trade investigation, a top company official said on Friday.
U.S. customs officials are investigating whether Waaree Energies sidestepped the country’s tariffs on Chinese-made cells and panels by labelling them as made in India, a charge the company has denied.
Waaree said the probe is in early stages and has not disrupted shipments.
“We are fully cooperating with the authorities and furnishing all required documentation,” Amit Paithankar, CEO of Waaree Energies, said in an interview.
“Internal assessment does point to the fact that it might not be a very large impact on us… We will see how it all evolves,” he said.
The company is doubling down on U.S. manufacturing, exploring both organic and inorganic growth opportunities, including potential cell and battery energy storage systems, Paithankar said.
“We will not give up on the U.S. It’s a very, very important market for us.”
Waaree, which has 16.1 GW of module making capacity in India and 2.6 GW in the U.S., is seeing strong U.S. demand due to demand from data centres, manufacturing and transportation.
The company’s total order book stands at around 470 billion rupees ($5.4 billion), 60% of which are exports. U.S. is its biggest export market, making up over half of the total revenue.
Waaree recently acquired a 1 gigawatt module manufacturing line from Swiss firm Meyer Burger in Arizona and is expanding its Houston, Texas facility to 3.2 GW from 1.6 GW.
The company plans to add 10 GW each of solar cell and ingot-wafer manufacturing capacity by 2027, building on its existing 5.4 GW cell capacity.
($1 = 87.8625 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Sethuraman NR; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
