Canadian Solar has formed joint venture with Suzhou New District Economic Development Group and Suzhou Science and Technology City Development for the construction of a 600MW photovoltaic (PV) cell production factory in Suzhou, China.
Under the terms of the agreement, Canadian Solar will invest 61% of the registered equity of the plant.
The plant will produce Canadian Solar’s ELPS and ESE solar cells.
Construction of the plant is scheduled to start immediately and commence operations by 2012, subject to the receipt of necessary permits.
The agreement is will help to augment the plant’s capacity to 2GW by the first quarter of 2012, which is line with Canadian Solar’s strategy to expand its annualized capacity for solar cells to 1.3-1.4 GW by mid-2011.
The company is also working towards reaching the 2GW of annualized capacity for module lamination capacity by mid-2011.
This would result in Canadian Solar achieving the cell and module vertical integration by the end of the first quarter of 2012.