Navitas Solar secures $20 million from responsAbility for cell expansion

Navitas Solar has secured growth capital of up to $20 million from Swiss impact asset manager responsAbility, pv magazine India reported. The money comes from responsAbility’s Asia Climate Fund and will support the first 2.4 GW phase of the 3.6 GW solar cell manufacturing capacity Navitas plans to build.

Navitas already has 3 GW of installed solar module manufacturing capacity. The cell plant is expected to strengthen its backward integration, so that more of the value in its modules is made in-house rather than bought in as cells.

Expansion Timeline

The first 2.4 GW phase is scheduled to become operational in the third quarter of FY 2028. The company has not given a timetable for the remaining 1.2 GW of the planned cell capacity.

The investor’s Asia Climate Fund targets scalable private-sector solutions that deliver measurable CO₂ emissions reductions and positive societal impact in high-growth markets. Kartik Jain, head of finance at Navitas Solar, said the funding would help strengthen the company’s financial position and support its expansion plans.

Technology Roadmap

As part of its next growth phase, Navitas has also partnered with Caelux to develop perovskite-TOPCon hybrid tandem solar modules. Under the agreement, Navitas will integrate Caelux’s perovskite-coated front glass with its own n-type TOPCon module technology.

The modules target efficiencies of up to 28%, compared with around 25% for conventional TOPCon modules. In a tandem module, a perovskite layer captures part of the sunlight spectrum and the silicon TOPCon cell underneath captures the rest, so together they can convert more of the light than a single silicon cell. In this design the perovskite sits on the front glass rather than being built into the cell itself.

The Caelux agreement targets 5 GW of hybrid tandem module manufacturing, with commercial production expected to begin in 2028, the same year the first cell phase is due online.

Company Profile

• Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Surat, Gujarat.
• Current module manufacturing capacity: 3 GW.
• Makes mono PERC and n-type TOPCon modules with power ratings of up to 720 W.
• Operations span module manufacturing, encapsulant production, EPC services, battery energy storage systems (BESS) and renewable power generation.
• Plans to expand further upstream into wafer and ingot manufacturing.

Cells would be the first upstream step for Navitas; wafers and ingots, the silicon stages before cells, would follow. Its planned entry into cell manufacturing is expected to deepen its integration across the solar value chain, alongside the encapsulant, EPC, storage and power-generation businesses it already runs.

Executive Reaction

Vineet Mittal, Director at Navitas, said the company’s backward integration into solar cells will strengthen domestic supply chains and can create greater value addition within India. “Our work in high-efficiency TOPCon technology and our partnership with Caelux on Perovskite-TOPCon Hybrid Tandem modules reflect our ambition to build advanced technologies that can compete globally. We see this partnership with responsAbility as an important step towards realizing that ambition responsibly and sustainably,” he said.

COO Vijay Menon said: “As Navitas scales, we want to build an organisation that is not measured only by capacity, revenue or profitability, but also by how responsibly and sustainably that growth is achieved.” He added that securing funding from responsAbility “is a validation of the hard work done so far and demonstrates our commitment to continued excellence and improvement.”

Jain said the partnership “reflects the confidence of a leading climate-focused investor in our business fundamentals, our execution capabilities, financial strategy, and the long-term growth potential of India’s solar manufacturing ecosystem.”

What to watch

The next milestones are the start of the first 2.4 GW cell phase in Q3 FY 2028 and commercial production of the Caelux tandem modules in 2028. Navitas has not yet said when the rest of the cell capacity, or its wafer and ingot plans, will follow.