Shake up in Solar PV vendor ranking, India's L&T in top-10, as per IMS

IMS Research has reported For the first time First Solar became the world’s largest photovoltaic (PV) EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor in 2012, with more than 500 megawatts (MW) of projects completed – an increase of 50 percent over 2011. IMS also finds a major shift in global rankings occurred in 2012 due to the explosive growth witnessed in Asia and the Americas at the expense of Europe. Just four European EPCs appeared in IHS’ top 10 rankings for 2012. The analytical findings and expert comments provides by IMS includes: U.S. Companies Come Out On Top Two other US-based EPCs – SunEdison and SunPower also featured in the top fifteen, installing 390 MW and 190 MW respectively. “Because of the dramatic shift in demand away from Europe, non-European companies are now completing vast numbers of PV projects around the world. Last year, just four of the top 10 EPCs and system integrators were based in Europe due to the large project business of US, Chinese and Indian companies. Back in 2010, seven of the top 10 EPCs were European,” commented Ash Sharma, senior director of solar research at IHS. First Solar and SunEdison were found to have benefited from the huge utility-scale PV pipeline being constructed both in the US and many other countries over a number a years, including the 550 MW Topaz Solar Farm and the 290 MW Agua Caliente Solar...