Solar photovoltaic deployment reached another record in 2025. The International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme estimated that approximately 698 GW of new PV capacity was installed worldwide, bringing cumulative capacity close to 3 TW. Nearly 40 countries installed at least 1 GW during the year, showing that growth is becoming more geographically distributed.
Investment patterns also show continued activity across the sector. Solar companies raised $22.2 billion in corporate funding during 2025, including venture capital, debt, and public-market financing. Funding increased to $11.1 billion across 53 deals during the first quarter of 2026, although venture investment remained more selective than debt financing.
Key Takeaways
- First Solar, Nextpower, Enpal, Sungrow, SolarSquare, and 1KOMMA5° demonstrate measurable momentum through revenue, customers, backlog, financing, or software adoption
- Solar growth increasingly depends on storage, tracking, grid controls, construction automation, and energy-management software as well as module production
- Residential solar companies are expanding into complete home-energy systems that include batteries, heat pumps, smart meters, electricity tariffs, and financing
- Manufacturing announcements should be evaluated through commissioned capacity, completed financing, construction progress, and production dates rather than long-term targets alone
- Landbase helps GTM teams map solar growth through factory, project, financing, hiring, customer, partnership, and geographic-expansion signals
1. First Solar
CEO: Mark Widmar
Headquarters: Tempe, Arizona, United States
First Solar recorded $1.04 billion in net sales during the first quarter of 2026, representing a 24% increase from the corresponding period in 2025. The company also reported a contracted sales backlog of 47.9 GW as of March 31, 2026.
Full-year 2025 net sales reached $5.2 billion, up from $4.2 billion in 2024. The increase was driven primarily by a 24% rise in the volume of modules sold to third-party customers.
Thin-Film Solar Manufacturing
First Solar manufactures cadmium telluride thin-film photovoltaic modules rather than conventional crystalline-silicon panels. Its technology is designed for utility-scale projects and uses a vertically integrated manufacturing process.
The company operates production facilities in the United States and internationally. Its current expansion includes manufacturing investment in Louisiana and a finishing facility in South Carolina.
Domestic Production and Backlog
First Solar’s contracted backlog gives the company multiyear visibility into expected module deliveries. Its U.S. manufacturing footprint also gives project developers access to modules produced outside the conventional Chinese crystalline-silicon supply chain.
The combination of current revenue growth, new facilities, and contracted demand makes First Solar one of the clearest operating-growth companies on this list.
2. Nextpower
CEO and Co-Founder: Dan Shugar
Headquarters: Fremont, California, United States
Nextpower, formerly Nextracker, generated record fiscal-year 2026 revenue of $3.56 billion, an increase of 20% year over year. Its backlog exceeded $5.25 billion, and cumulative solar-tracker shipments passed 160 GW.
The company expanded further in 2026 by completing its acquisition of energy-storage provider Prevalon Energy and agreeing to acquire Zimmermann PV-Steel Group. It also broadened its international solar product portfolio beyond its original tracker business.
Integrated Solar-Plant Systems
Nextpower supplies tracking structures that rotate panels to follow the sun and increase energy generation. Its expanding portfolio also includes foundations, electrical balance-of-system products, steel frames, robotics, power electronics, storage, and control software.
The company combines structural, electrical, and digital systems intended to improve project execution and long-term solar-plant performance.
Expansion Beyond Trackers
Nextpower’s growth shows how utility-scale suppliers can expand into a wider power-generation platform. Trackers remain its core product, but acquisitions and internal product development are increasing its role across construction, plant controls, electrical infrastructure, and storage.
This broader product mix can increase the company’s revenue opportunity within each solar project while reducing its dependence on one equipment category.
3. Enpal
Founder and CEO: Mario Kohle
Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
Enpal reported revenue of more than €1.1 billion for 2025, representing 25% organic growth from €890 million in 2024. The company also recorded its first full year of positive free cash flow and reported serving more than 115,000 households in Germany and Italy.
Enpal raised €110 million in growth capital in April 2025. It later established an approximately €700 million financing facility with M&G to support residential solar and heating loans.
Integrated Residential Energy
Enpal provides photovoltaic systems, batteries, EV chargers, smart meters, heat pumps, electricity services, and financing. Its Enpal.One+ platform connects distributed energy systems and manages electricity purchases and exports.
The company has expanded beyond solar installation into metering, energy trading, heating, and business-to-business services for other installers.
Financing and Customer Scale
Residential solar growth depends partly on the availability of affordable financing. Enpal’s capital structures allow it to provide purchase and financing options while refinancing groups of customer loans through institutional facilities.
Its 2025 revenue, customer growth, positive cash flow, and expanded financing capacity provide stronger evidence than valuation alone.
4. Sungrow
Chairman and President: Cao Renxian
Headquarters: Hefei, China
Sungrow generated CNY 89.18 billion in revenue during 2025, an increase of 14.55% from the previous year. Net profit attributable to shareholders increased 21.97% to CNY 13.46 billion.
Energy-storage revenue increased 49.39% and became Sungrow’s largest business segment during the year. The company reported delivering 43 GWh of energy-storage systems in 2025 and later announced more than 11 GWh of new project agreements at its 2026 renewable-energy summit.
Inverters and Energy Storage
Sungrow develops photovoltaic inverters, utility-scale and commercial storage systems, power controls, charging equipment, and renewable-energy project technologies. Inverters convert electricity produced by solar modules into power that can be used by buildings or delivered to the grid.
Its storage systems allow solar generation to be held and dispatched when demand or electricity prices are higher.
Solar and Storage Convergence
Sungrow’s results illustrate how energy storage is becoming central to the solar market. As solar penetration rises, developers increasingly need systems that can control output, reduce curtailment, and support grid stability.
The company’s global service network and large installed base also support expansion into markets requiring local commissioning and maintenance capabilities.
5. SolarSquare
Co-Founder and CEO: Shreya Mishra
Headquarters: Mumbai, India
SolarSquare raised $53 million in Series C financing in June 2026, bringing its total disclosed capital above $100 million. B Capital led the round, with participation from existing investors including Lightspeed, Lowercarbon Capital, Rainmatter, and Good Capital.
At the time of the financing, SolarSquare powered nearly 50,000 homes across 29 cities in nine Indian states. The company planned to use the capital to enter an additional 30 to 40 cities and expand into financing, storage, maintenance, and home-energy management.
Residential Rooftop Solar
SolarSquare manages residential solar projects from consultation and system design through financing, installation, permitting, and maintenance. It also serves housing societies and selected commercial customers.
The company combines installation services with technology, financing assistance, performance monitoring, and generation guarantees.
India’s Distributed-Solar Expansion
India added almost 50 GW of solar capacity in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. Much of the country’s future residential opportunity remains distributed across households and cities that have yet to adopt rooftop systems.
SolarSquare’s funding, installed base, and planned geographic expansion make it one of the clearest residential solar growth companies in 2026.
6. 1KOMMA5°
CEO and Co-Founder: Philipp Schröder
Headquarters: Hamburg, Germany
1KOMMA5° extended its €150 million pre-IPO financing round in July 2025. At that time, the company reported nearly €400 million in total equity funding, more than 120,000 customers, and over 300,000 installed distributed-energy systems.
The company reported a record month in July 2025, with German order intake rising approximately 30% year over year to nearly €42 million. Global sales approached 4,000 energy systems during the month, while revenue from its Heartbeat AI software nearly doubled from the preceding year.
Home Electrification Platform
1KOMMA5° sells and installs solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, air-conditioning systems, and EV chargers. Its Heartbeat AI software coordinates those assets with wholesale electricity-market conditions.
The platform can store, consume, purchase, or export electricity based on production, demand, and market pricing.
From Installation to Software Revenue
The company’s business is shifting from one-time hardware installation toward a combination of equipment, electricity services, and recurring software. Heartbeat AI controlled more than 500 MW of flexible capacity by mid-2025.
This model gives 1KOMMA5° an opportunity to earn revenue after an installation is completed while aggregating household systems into a larger virtual power plant.
7. Terabase Energy
CEO and Co-Founder: Matt Campbell
Headquarters: Berkeley, California, United States
Terabase Energy raised $130 million in Series C financing led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in March 2025, bringing its total funding above $200 million. The company planned to use the investment to scale its robotics-assisted solar construction system and wider digital platform.
In March 2026, Terabase announced that its next-generation Terafab automated-construction platform had completed field testing and was ready for commercial deployment. Its Construct platform had also surpassed 2 GW of projects managed for EDP Renewables.
Automated Solar Construction
Terabase combines construction robotics, project-management software, plant modeling, SCADA systems, and operational controls. Terafab creates an assembly-line environment for preparing and installing solar modules on large projects.
The system is designed to increase installation productivity, reduce heavy manual handling, and improve construction consistency.
Addressing Deployment Bottlenecks
Utility-scale solar growth depends on construction labor, logistics, engineering, and project coordination as well as equipment supply. Terabase targets these operational bottlenecks rather than manufacturing panels or developing electricity projects directly.
Its financing and transition from testing toward commercial deployment make it an important solar-infrastructure company to watch.
8. Goldi Solar
Founder and Managing Director: Ishver Dholakiya
Headquarters: Surat, Gujarat, India
Goldi Solar secured ₹1,422 crore in growth capital in October 2025 from a group led by Havells India. The funding is intended to support module-capacity expansion, backward integration into solar-cell production, product development, and commercial growth.
Goldi reported increasing module-manufacturing capacity from 3 GW to 14.7 GW during the preceding 12 months. Its current company materials list 15.2 GW of annual capacity and plans to commission a 1.2 GW cell-manufacturing line during 2026.
Module and Cell Manufacturing
Goldi manufactures high-efficiency photovoltaic modules for residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects. Its production operations are concentrated across several facilities in Gujarat.
The company is adding cell production to create a more vertically integrated manufacturing structure.
Indian Manufacturing Expansion
India’s solar additions reached almost 50 GW during 2025, the fastest percentage growth among major renewable markets. This expansion is creating demand for domestic modules, cells, components, logistics, and service capacity.
Goldi’s rapid module expansion and investment in cells position it within India’s effort to build more of the solar supply chain domestically.
9. Origis Energy
CEO: Vikas Anand
Headquarters: Miami, Florida, United States
Origis Energy announced a strategic investment from Brookfield Asset Management and existing owner Antin Infrastructure Partners in January 2025. The combined commitments could exceed $1 billion and are intended to support the company’s U.S. solar and battery-storage portfolio.
In February 2026, Origis announced the completion of three Swift Air solar facilities in West Texas. The combined 500 MWdc portfolio represents more than $650 million in infrastructure investment and supplies power supporting Occidental’s operations, including its STRATOS direct-air-capture facility.
Solar and Storage Development
Origis develops, finances, constructs, owns, and operates utility-scale solar and energy-storage projects. It also provides operations, maintenance, and asset-management services.
Its customers include utilities, commercial and industrial energy users, and public-sector organizations.
Capital-to-Project Conversion
Large strategic investments matter most when they translate into completed infrastructure. Origis combines its capital raise with evidence of projects reaching commissioning and commercial operation.
The company’s growth therefore reflects both access to institutional capital and the ability to move solar projects through development, construction, and delivery.
10. HoloSolis
CEO: Bertrand Lecacheux
Headquarters: Paris, France
HoloSolis raised more than €220 million, approximately $255 million at the exchange rate reported at the time, in November 2025. The financing supports a photovoltaic cell and module factory planned for Sarreguemines-Hambach in northeastern France.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2026, with the first modules expected in 2027. At full capacity, the factory is intended to produce 5 GW of cells and modules annually and employ approximately 1,900 people.
European Cell and Module Production
HoloSolis plans to manufacture n-type TOPCon photovoltaic cells and modules. Its site has also been designed to accommodate later technology developments, including tandem cells that combine silicon and perovskite materials.
The project is part of a broader effort to rebuild photovoltaic manufacturing capacity in Europe.
Pre-Commercial Manufacturing Signal
HoloSolis remains a factory-development project rather than an established high-volume producer. Its growth evidence is therefore based on completed financing, site development, scheduled construction, planned employment, and a stated production timeline.
Future progress should be assessed through construction milestones, equipment installation, hiring, customer agreements, and the start of commercial manufacturing.
How Landbase Helps Map Solar Supply Chains and Expansion Signals
Solar-market research often begins with a visible project or factory announcement but extends across a much larger group of organizations. A new module plant can create demand among equipment manufacturers, material suppliers, construction contractors, logistics providers, testing laboratories, workforce firms, and software companies.
GTM teams can request an audience using plain English to identify accounts connected with specific operating developments. A search could focus on module manufacturers adding production lines, developers securing project financing, residential solar companies entering new states, or utility-scale contractors adopting construction automation.
More detailed advanced audience search can combine company attributes with historical conditions, rankings, uploaded records, and custom output fields. This supports solar-specific segmentation such as:
- Module manufacturers commissioning U.S. or European facilities
- Solar developers with projects approaching construction
- Residential platforms expanding installer networks
- Inverter and storage providers opening service locations
- EPC companies hiring procurement or operations leaders
- Software providers serving utility-scale developers
- Solar companies receiving recent growth capital
Landbase can also match incomplete supplier records, enrich accounts with company and contact data, and identify relevant people across procurement, engineering, manufacturing, partnerships, project finance, and operations.
Technical teams can use Landbase CLI to run these workflows through Claude Code, Codex, scripts, or a terminal. Structured outputs can then support supplier maps, CRM preparation, partner research, market monitoring, and account-prioritization models.
Frequently Asked Questions
What signals show that a solar company is growing?
Strong signals include rising revenue, signed backlog, factory expansion, customer growth, project commissioning, and repeat financing from established investors. Manufacturers can also be evaluated through operational production capacity, shipment volume, and new cell or module lines. Developers should be assessed through projects reaching financing, construction, and commercial operation. Several operating signals provide a more reliable picture than a funding announcement alone.
Why are solar and energy-storage companies increasingly connected?
Solar generation varies with daylight and weather, while electricity demand continues after solar output declines. Storage allows excess energy to be saved and delivered later, reducing curtailment and improving the predictability of a project. Batteries can also provide grid-support and electricity-market services. This makes storage an increasingly important part of utility, commercial, and residential solar systems.
How should proposed solar factories be evaluated?
A proposed factory should be assessed through secured financing, permits, construction progress, equipment orders, hiring, customer agreements, and a realistic production date. Announced gigawatt capacity describes the intended size of the facility rather than its current output. Projects can face delays because of financing, technology, permitting, supply-chain, or market conditions. Commercial production and sustained utilization provide stronger evidence than the announcement itself.
Why do solar companies use several forms of financing?
Solar companies have different capital needs depending on their business model. Software startups may use venture equity, manufacturers may require growth capital and equipment financing, and project developers often rely on debt, tax equity, and long-term infrastructure investment. Residential platforms can also use warehouse facilities or securitizations to finance customer systems. The type of financing can therefore reveal which part of the business a company is preparing to expand.
Which buying signals matter when targeting solar companies?
Relevant signals include new factories, project awards, financing facilities, geographic expansion, acquisitions, product launches, and large hiring programs. The most useful professional roles depend on the event, with manufacturing growth increasing demand across supply chain, equipment, quality, and operations. Project growth can create opportunities involving engineering, construction, finance, grid integration, insurance, and asset management. Landbase can support this research through company matching, enrichment, audience creation, and reusable account datasets.
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