Canadian Solar’s PV Manufacturing Faces Minimal Impact of Covid-19

Canadian Solar, a leading solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer, has recently revealed that it had experienced the limited impact of the coronavirus outbreak on its production facilities based in China.

Although the company faced severe disruptions from January-mid by way of capacity loss amidst the COVID-19 carnage, it did not have a large impact on the production facilities, said the data and analytics company, GlobalData.

China is the major manufacturing hub of solar PV equipment globally and the company enjoys almost 73 percent of the manufacturing capability located in China.

Commenting on the matter, Somik Das, Senior Power Analyst at GlobalData, explained that “while China is fighting to get back to work at a slow pace, many factories have not yet started operating at full capacity due to reduced staff and raw materials. Solar PV manufacturers such as Trina Solar have put forth the possibilities of production delays.

“However, Canadian Solar’s manufacturing subsidiaries in China are located in Jiangsu, Changshu province, which has not been seriously impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, they were able to resume the production post extended Chinese New Year holidays,” Das added.

Earlier, the company stated that the impact on its delivery schedule is mostly limited to the capacity loss during the last week of January 2020 and the starting 10 days of February 2020.

He further analysed that “since mid-February 2020, the production, facilities have been re-started with limited cases of production hiccups. The company had been preparing for any impact on the cross-border logistics and project construction timelines based on different country plans regarding self-quarantine and complete lockdowns amidst the pandemic outburst. This preparation is helping the company to stand strong in these times.”