Abhilash Borana’s introduction to Failte Solar is straightforward and to the point. “It Solar is a distribution company providing solar products to all installers in Ireland, Spain and the UK,” he says simply.
That covers the basics, but there is far more to Failte Solar than that. The company has evolved to become a one-stop shopping experience for the complete range of solar products. The company has established an online portal that is among the largest and fastest-growing digital wholesale stores to serve the renewables sector. Its catalogue serves the entire spectrum of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and off-grid living, not only supplying the equipment, but installing, supporting, and even providing funding for it where necessary.
Failte Solar is a company built to provide customer satisfaction through the best products, the highest levels of service, and distinguished, long-term relationships. It has recruited an enthusiastic and highly motivated team who are excited to work with clients in the most future-orientated of businesses.
“We have a warehousing and logistics facility and provide everything from technical support to finance and funding support,” Borana explains. “The quality of the product we are installing is much better than the competition. It is a tier one product.”
Borana oversees the marketing, sale, and servicing of these products from Failte Solar’s head office in Shannon, Ireland, working closely with the firm’s subsidiaries in Spain, the United Kingdom, and now Scandinavia and Bulgaria.
“Failte Solar is the product supplier, but to supply the product effectively we have realised the other complementary elements that we need,” Borana tells us. “We need warehousing and transport, so this year we have opened a transport and warehousing business. We will grow with our clients, exploring the transportation and warehousing business in the solar industry and see where that takes us. Failte Finance is another area. We will also be financing and funding installers, giving loans to installers so that if they have a solar project, we can buy it and manage the assets.”
It is a truly international team, with staff from more than 20 different nationalities, led by Borana. As the company’s founder and CEO, he has earned a reputation as a visionary leader. This year he has been recognised as a finalist in the 2023 EY International Entrepreneur awards and a member of Forbes’ prestigious “30 Under 30 Europe” list in 2022.
Born in India, Borana came to Europe to study and set himself the goal of becoming a millionaire by the time he was 30. It is a goal he has achieved with flying colours.
But Failte Solar is about more than vision, it is about values. Borana’s guiding principles in leading the company are innovation and responsibility. He believes that while good products are essential to any business, you also need a strong corporate culture. The same high levels of reliability and functionality that define the products Failte Solar sells, also define the team that sells them.
“Our biggest challenges are in trading. It is about knowing when to buy, what to buy, and how to buy with any kind of equipment,” Borana says. “We do our market research, talk to people, and gather feedback so that we know where the market demand is going.”
It is an entrepreneur-driven company that cultivates an atmosphere of togetherness and collaboration – from employee development to active customer management. Everything Failte Solar does is geared towards creating a foundation for sustainable success through the best working and business conditions.
A Strong Partnership
It is this reputation that has led to the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Failte Solar and JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd during the China (Jiangxi)-Europe (Ireland) Economic and Trade Promotion Conference in Dublin this September.
JinkoSolar Holding is known as one of the world’s biggest and most innovative solar module manufacturers. Under its new agreement with Failte Solar, the firm will supply Tiger Neo modules with a total capacity of 200 MW. The deal will also see the two firms cooperate in complementary fields including products and localised services.
“We have worked with JinkoSolar for a long time, and we have just signed a deal for 400 MW for next year to get more market share for Jinko in Ireland,” Borana explains.
Together, the companies intend to collaborate on growing and developing the high-end distributed PV market in Ireland. Failte Solar will use its position in the market to distribute JinkoSolar’s high-quality N-Type Tiger Neo Solar Modules to installers for residential and commercial solar rooftop installations.
“The advantage of the partnership is the pricing and the stock supply we can provide,” Borana tells us.
By combining Failte Solar’s local expertise and JinkoSolar’s global reach, Borana believes the newly established partnership will be able to drive significant growth in the solar energy market across Europe.
But Borana’s ambitions go further than that. Failte Solar has set itself the goal of expanding into the markets of more than ten new countries through strategic partnerships, and this collaboration with JinkoSolar is the foundation of that plan.
“Before 2030 we want to open distribution channels in more than ten countries while achieving turnover of £500 million to a billion and employee numbers of more than 200 people,” Borana says. “We are recruiting people with the knowledge and contacts to handle each country.”
It means finding talent, and talent with the kind of local expertise Failte Solar is building an international business on.
“We know our competitors and pay attention if they have any talent we want to attract,” Borana says. “We recruit fresh talent through sites such as Indeed. We do our own research. We are generally not trying to bring people from the solar industry. We are trying to bring experts from other industries and train them in the way we want things done, rather than having experts in our industry coming in with their own preconceptions.”
There is work ahead, but it is clear that Borana is confident, and he believes the time has never been better to expand.
“The market is there, and solar is the future. Businesses and countries around the world are facing solar targets and green targets,” Borana says. “The challenge is to copy and paste what we are doing in Ireland, the UK and Spain to other markets.”
