FILKAB Solar designs and builds custom photovoltaic solutions for the specific consumption profile of industrial consumers since 2010. FILKAB Solar is part of one of Bulgaria’s biggest groups of companies providing wholesale, manufacturing and project implementation services in the electrical industry. The company has operations in seven Bulgarian cities and has subsidiaries in Serbia and North Macedonia. Slav Landov is the company’s Managing Director.
Mr. Landov, FILKAB Solar is among the main suppliers to the renewables sector in Bulgaria. Can you tell us a bit more about your products?
FILKAB has been an active participant in Bulgaria’s renewables sector for more than 12 years – first as an EPC company focused on utility-scale PV projects and later – as a wholesaler and O&M provider. Starting from 2015, all our PV-related business activities were transferred to a new subsidiary – FILKAB Solar, which offers a complete scope of products and services in the photovoltaics segment. As a company group with 23 years of experience in the wholesale and distribution business we’re able to provide a unique portfolio of products and services to our customers. We maintain a significant stock of a variety of cables, cable accessories, automation and PV equipment from leading European manufacturers – SMA Solar Technology AG, KOSTAL Solar Electric GmbH, Schletter Solar GmbH, Hanwha Q Cells and many others. Our network of warehouses around the country facilitates the deliveries to the customers’ premises or projects and gives us an advantage against our European competitors that lack infrastructure in the country. Our customers can also rely on our experience and local support when facing challenges in the execution of their projects, as we not only distribute products, but also implement them in projects by ourselves. While our portfolio includes products for utility, commercial and residential applications, our business model is B2B as we don’t deliver to private customers.
What are the latest projects in your pipeline?
The project implementation division of FILKAB Solar consists of a highly qualified engineering team of designers, electrical engineers and project managers who have years of expertise in the field. We’re focused on projects starting from the MW range and provide our customers with a complete package of all necessary ingredients for the realisation of a PV project – from administrative procedures with authorities and the grid operator, engineering, procurement, construction and O&M. In collaboration with the other companies from our group, we can solve challenging engineering projects including medium-voltage and high-voltage grid connections, custom-built transformer stations, substations, data acquisition, monitoring and control systems and many others.
At this moment, we’re simultaneously running a couple of PV projects for key customers including CEZ ESCO, Calcit, Asarel Medet, Gotmar and others. Each of those projects has its own specifics in terms of installation type, mounting approach and grid connection requirements.
We’re also in the final stage of development of the first 15 MW of our own ground-mounted photovoltaic projects near Orizari, in Plovdiv district, as so far we possessed only a root-top system on our headquarters buildings in the city of Plovdiv. The construction phase of those 15 MW should start around Q2 2023 and would probably be just the beginning of our investments in energy production and energy storage. Our core supplier of inverter technology – SMA, is a pioneer in the R&D of large-scale system solutions for energy storage and battery-based grid support in Germany and we would like to transfer their know-how in Bulgaria. Our storage market remains underdeveloped, but promising – with more than 24 GW of PV systems having already applied for preliminary grid connection permits, utility-scale storage options would be mandatory to keep the grid stable. Large-scale energy storage is also one of the paths to reduce Bulgaria’s dependency on imported gas and oil – a topic that is especially important after Russia’s unprovoked invasion in Ukraine.
The company is also active in other markets outside of Bulgaria. What are your main activities in those markets?
We had successful experience in building PV projects in neighbouring countries, with the best example being the Republic of Turkey where we installed more than 100 MWp of PV. Our local market, however, is currently needing our complete dedication so we decided to temporarily withdraw from markets in which we lack local structures. Our subsidiaries in North Macedonia and Serbia are already active as local wholesalers of the same brands that we distribute in Bulgaria, but are also gradually expanding their capabilities to implement PV projects, building on top of the experience we already have. We are still pursuing opportunities for wholesale deliveries for big energy projects around the world.