Canadian Solar Supplying Modules to SunEdison's Rovigo Solar Plant

Canadian Solar announced on 13 Jan 11 that the company was one of the module suppliers to Europe's largest capacity PV solar power plant. The construction company, SunEdison, successfully interconnected a 70 MW PV power plant in Northeast Italy, near the town of Rovigo, which is now the largest capacity single-operating PV solar power plant in Europe, with interconnection completed in just nine-months.

"The impressive scale of this milestone European PV project is a direct testament to the high quality work by SunEdison and its partners, including Canadian Solar. We are proud that Canadian Solar's modules were selected to be a part of this major project due to our proven track record of high quality and reliability," said Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar. "Canadian Solar has already deployed over 1 GW of modules around the world in the last 8 years. We look forward to continuing to work with our customers, such as SunEdison, to promote the expansion of solar energy worldwide."

Though Canadian Solar was founded in Ontario in 2001, its R&D and manufacturing are in China.

Canadian Solar opened its newest state-of-the-art PV Research Center in the Suzhou in early 2009. The 1500 square meter (16,145 sf) facility is staffed by PhD scientists, engineers and technicians focused on continuous improvement of efficiency and production yields for standard poly-silicon cells and our proprietary solar grade e-cells.

The research and development of high efficiency solar cell structures includes enhanced selective emitters, N-type and wrap-through back-contact cells. Canadian Solar partners with academic and business leaders such as DuPont, ECN, University of Toronto and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Canadian Solar's research center is the only provincially accredited PV cell research center in Jiangsu.

Established in early 2008, the Canadian Solar PV Testing Lab ensures the highest international testing standards for solar panels, operating with a full accreditation according to ISO/IEC 17025 (Accreditation Criteria for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories).

The Photovoltaic Testing Lab has been equipped with a damp heat chamber, thermal cycling chamber, UV chamber, hotspot test equipment, IR camera, salt spray chambers and water spray chambers. The following reliability tests may be conducted in our lab: thermal cycling, damp heat, UV, hotspot, mechanical load, I-V performance, outdoor exposure, dry & wet hi-pot, bypass diode thermal, humidity freeze and robustness of terminations.

Canadian Solar production facilities are structured for vertically-integrated manufacturing of ingots, wafers, solar cells, solar PV modules, solar power systems and specialized solar products. Canadian Solar has successfully established seven wholly-owned manufacturing subsidiaries across China with some of the lowest manufacturing cost structures in the industry.

Canadian Solar has fast become one of the largest solar companies in the world. With a combined manufacturing facility space of close to 256,439 sqm (2.76 million SF), Canadian Solar’s 8000 employees around the world created revenues of $705 million in 2008: a 133% growth over 2007.