Canadian Solar Mulls Solar & Battery Storage Manufacturing Expansion in China

Global solar manufacturer Canadian Solar Inc. has announced that a wholly-owned subsidiary of its majority-owned subsidiary CSI Solar has entered into a multi-year investment agreement with the municipal government of Yangzhou City in Jiangsu Province, China.

Under the agreement, Canadian Solar will add vertically integrated high efficiency wafer, cell, and module capacity in Yangzhou’s clean energy manufacturing industrial park. The company will also build a battery system manufacturing facility.

Canadian Solar mentioned in its official statement that the project plan will be carried out in three phases. In phase I, the company will add a capacity of 14 GW of wafer and cell manufacturing. Phase I is expected to commence production in the second half of 2023, while the implementation of phase II and III is subject to change, at the discretion of CSI Solar, based on market conditions and the Company’s assessments.

With this announcement and considering the solar supply chain’s demand and supply backdrop, Canadian Solar has also updated its 2023 year-end capacities to 20 GW of ingot, 35 GW of wafer, and 50 GW of cell and modules. It will provide further guidance on 2023 capital expenditures in the next earnings call.

Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, said, ” Our capacity additions will further enhance our profitability in an environment of rapidly declining upstream raw material costs, and we are dynamically adjusting our capacity plans to account for a market backdrop with pockets of large supply as well as pockets of tight supply relative to demand.”

In December, 2022, Canadian Solar announced that CSI Solar will start mass production of high efficiency N-type TOPCon (Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact) solar modules in the first quarter of 2023. The company claims that its TOPCon modules to be best in class and have a power output of up to 690W, and a cell conversion efficiency of around 25.0%.

Canadian Solar also launched EP Cube, a lightweight and sleek all-in-one residential energy storage solution, at RE+ trade show in September in Anaheim, California.