Canadian Solar Completes the Sale of 290 MWp Greenfield Solar Portfolio in Italy

Canadian Solar has announced the sale of the remaining 30 percent ownership of the Big Fish SPV and Iron SPV solar projects to Falck Renewables. Both projects are located in Sicily, Italy, and have a total expected capacity of more than 290 MWp. The Company expects to recognize revenues from the sale in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Canadian Solar partnered with Falck Renewables back in 2019 to jointly develop the Big Fish and Iron projects, selling 70 percent ownership of the projects to Falck Renewables. Since then, the projects have successfully secured grid connection and preliminary land rights, and have also applied for permits and authorizations.

Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar commented, “We are pleased to have partnered with Falck Renewables in this initiative which allowed us to broaden our portfolio in Italy and has brought development progress to our projects. Going forward, our strategy in Italy will focus on growing and diversifying our pipeline, currently in excess of 1.3 GWp across various regions in the country, with around 140 MWp expected to reach notice-to-proceed (NTP) in 2021. We will also focus on securing long term energy sale agreements and maximize the value we generate from our projects.”

He added, “Italy is one of the countries in Europe where solar energy has reached grid parity at the wholesale level, and therefore we expect the growth of energy sale agreements to accelerate in the following years. This is supportive of the ambitious goals set by the government to substantially increase its solar PV installed capacity over the next decade. As the energy market shows modest but positive signs of improvement from the COVID impact, we see new attractive opportunities in the private PPA market. We are excited about the opportunities in Italy, which represents one of Canadian Solar’s strongest core markets in the EMEA region, and expect to gain market share and solidify our position as one of the leading players in the Italian solar PV market.”

In November, we had reported that the firm had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with BTG Pactual, and that it was awarded two projects in a private auction by Furnas Centrais Elétricas (Furnas) for a total of 862 MWp in solar power projects in Brazil.