KAVI Solar Research: Mapping a Value Chain from Macro to Molecule

Akshat took on a solar energy research brief at KAVI with a tight three-to-four-day execution window. An institutional investor was considering a position in a listed Indian solar company, and the brief was to understand the full competitive landscape.

He started at the macro level: why was Indian solar manufacturing struggling? The answer was Chinese pricing. Chinese manufacturers, operating at massive scale, were selling solar cells at prices Indian facilities could not match without government subsidy. Akshat went deep into Chinese pricing trends, Indian manufacturing cost structures, and the government schemes, including the ALMM policy, that were beginning to close the gap.

From pricing, he moved to cell efficiency and chemistry. Chinese cells had a quality edge built over decades of manufacturing. But Akshat found Indian manufacturers who were beginning to compete, and he got on calls with them to understand what it actually took to produce cells at that standard. He mapped the three to four dominant cell chemistries and assessed which worked for Indian climate conditions.

He then moved down the value chain to the panel level. On solar glass, he found that a single major Indian manufacturer, Borosil Renewables, dominated supply, with only a handful of smaller players attempting to enter. He documented the concentration risk and what it meant for anyone building a large-scale solar venture.

The research surfaced a finding that cut against the original framing. The real competitive edge in solar was not in manufacturing at all. It came down to two factors: the geography of plant placement, which determined sunlight yield, and the emerging role of robotics in tracking panels to maximize electricity output. These were the variables that would separate the winners, and they were invisible in the standard financial analysis.