US engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor SOLV Energy has built over 13GW of solar PV capacity and remains the leading EPC contractor as of the third quarter of 2024.
The latest report from Wiki-Solar, a utility-scale PV database, highlights the continued dominance from US and Indian companies for EPC contractors due to the project’s size increasing with time. “China, India and the US now have plants at the gigawatt scale,” said Philip Wolfe, founder of Wiki-Solar.
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According to Wiki-Solar, the average solar PV plant’s size in the US increased from 15MW a decade ago to 90MW, while in India the average solar PV plant stands at over 80MW.
A contrast difference with Europe where the average size of a project sits at less than 20MW, thus requiring EPCs to build more projects to be on par with their US and Indian counterparts in terms of capacity.
Although the top 10 list of EPCs is dominated by US and Indian companies, a German firm and two French companies have ranked among the top EPC contractors. French EPC Eiffage Energie Systèmes took the third spot, behind US companies SOLV Energy and McCarthy Building, first and second, respectively. SOLV Energy retains the top spot from last year, and increased its capacity by 1.6GW since Q1 2024. Between the three companies, they had built a cumulative 24.7GW of solar PV capacity – counting only projects bigger than 4MW – as of the third quarter of 2024.
Another notable presence in the TOP list of contractors, as shown in the chart above, is thin-film cadmium telluride solar manufacturer First Solar at the fifth spot with 4.3GW of operational capacity contracted.
On the other hand, looking at the list of operations and maintenance (O&M) contractors, the top three changes only slightly with First Solar taking the second spot over McCarthy Building, while SOLV Energy and Eiffage Energie Systèmes remain first and third, respectively. Between the three companies they account for 19.5GW of O&M solar capacity contracted.
