When Vikram Solar switched on its new 5 GW Vallam mega-factory in Tamil Nadu this year, more than a manufacturing line came alive, an inflection point in India’s clean-tech story did. Almost overnight, the company more than doubled its production capacity to 9.5 GW, placing it among the country’s largest solar manufacturers. But the milestone carries a significance far beyond scale. Vallam is one of India’s first truly next-generation, robotics-led, automation-rich solar manufacturing ecosystems, a facility that signals India’s arrival on the global map of high-tech module production. In a landscape long shaped by East Asian giants, Vallam stands as a decisive assertion: India is no longer catching up, but stepping forward as a credible leader in advanced solar manufacturing.
This moment is rooted in one man’s foresight. Two decades ago long before solar demand surged, before global supply chains diversified, and before India articulated its net-zero ambition Gyanesh Chaudhary placed a bold bet on photovoltaics, convinced that India would one day not just consume solar technology but manufacture it at world-class standards. Vallam is the materialisation of that conviction.
As Chairman and Managing Director of Vikram Solar, Chaudhary has shaped the organisation’s evolution from a modest PV venture into a global clean-tech brand with customers in 39 countries. A business graduate from Cardiff Business School, with executive education from Boston University and Harvard Business School, he returned to India determined to build an industry that did not yet exist at scale. Over the years, he has also become a prominent voice in India’s energy transition. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the ICC’s National Expert Committee on Energy, is an Executive Member of the Chamber, and is a distinguished member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), contributing actively to the CII India CEO Forum for Clean Air.
Chaudhary has received numerous awards, including the Export Excellence Award from FIEO presented by the late President Shri Pranab Mukherjee, the Star Performer Award by CBIP presented by the late President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, and the BCC&I Entrepreneurship Award. Most recently, he was honoured as “Visionary of the Year” at the Solar Quarter State Leadership Awards 2024 – Rajasthan.
Under his leadership, Vikram Solar has built one of India’s strongest on-ground networks over 100 authorised distributors, 375+ dealers, and 75+ system integrators while transforming from an early-stage module maker into a technology-forward, innovation-led enterprise. Today, the company is architecting one of India’s most ambitious clean-energy manufacturing clusters in Tamil Nadu, designed for automation-led module production, advanced solar-cell manufacturing, and emerging energy-storage capabilities.
Yet Vallam is only one piece of this carefully constructed southern cluster, a cluster Chaudhary envisioned long before Tamil Nadu emerged as a clean-tech powerhouse. The state has rapidly become one of India’s most strategic hubs for advanced manufacturing, and Vikram Solar has been central to this rise. The journey began with the company’s Oragadam facility, expanded with the commissioning of Vallam, and will soon be anchored by the upcoming Gangaikondan integrated complex, a clean-tech ecosystem that will house 12 GW of solar-cell and 6 GW of module capacity.
The industry stands at one of the most consequential technology transitions of the decade, accelerating from PERC to TOPCon and increasingly toward HJT. Leadership in this era will belong to companies that build ahead of the curve and invest early in automation and advanced cell architectures.
That is precisely what Vikram Solar has done. With more than 20 years of experience, a legacy of industry firsts, and a founder who believed in solar long before it found its pulse, the company is not just participating in India’s clean-tech evolution, it is helping architect it.