Canadian Solar to Develop 600 MW Photovoltaic Cell Production Plant in Suzhou

Canadian Solar declared that it has inked a deal with Suzhou Science and Technology City Development and Suzhou New District Economic Development Group to construct a new 600 MW photovoltaic cell manufacturing plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

The plant will be based 8 km away from the present solar cell manufacturing facility of Canadian Solar and will completely enable the proprietary ELPS and ESE solar cells. The ELPS solar cell technology of the company is designed to improve the power production efficiency of mono-crystalline solar cells by up to 19.5% and polycrystalline solar cells by up to 18%. The announced joint venture will enable the company to achieve around 2 GW of internal solar cell capability during the Q1 of 2012. Canadian Solar is on track to achieve a yearly capacity of 2 GW in solar module lamination by the middle of 2011.

According to Dr. Shawn Qu, Canadian Solar’s Chairman and CEO, the new move will allow the company to concentrate more on the vertical integration of its wafers, modules and solar cells. He added that it will allow the company to increase its solar cell production capacity to address customers’ demand. The new facility will incorporate the ELPS technology and the company will concentrate to increase its manufacturing capability via improved cell efficiency and other technology developments, he said.