The enthusiasm for solar energy is heating up across the globe.
Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ), an Ontario-based company that produces solar panels in China, has announced its plan to open a photovoltaic cell factory in Suzhou, China.
This new plant will be located just 8km – or in more American terms, 5 miles – from an existing Canadian Solar cell plant.
This is the result of an agreement between Canadian Solar, the Suzhou New District Economic Development Group Corporation, and Suzhou Science and Technology City Development Company, Ltd.
The solar cell manufacturing plant will be designed to have a yearly output of 600 megawatts.
The goal is to have the plant completed by 2012.
Shawn Qu, Chairman of Canadian Solar, believes “This is a major development, as we move toward more substantial wafer, cell and module integration.”
The ultimate target, he says, is to use this to “meet higher customer demand levels.”
A rise in customer demand? This can only mean a growing market for solar energy.
The new plant will use ELPS cell technology, a revolutionary way of making solar components that can actually raise cell efficiencies to as high as 19.5%.
This plan closely followed an earlier Canadian Solar agreement with GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. (HK: 3800), a polysilicon production company, to build a wafer production plant.
The wafer plant, also to be built in Suzhou, China, will have an output of 600 megawatts.
Shawn Qu and the rest of Canadian Solar hope combining this output with that of the solar cell plant will boost annual output to as much as 1.2 or even closer to 2 gigawatts.
That’s a pretty substantial energy output.
It seems that the Germany’s not the only country going green.
Or should I say yellow?
That’s all for now,
Brianna
