Canadian Solar Inc. today announced that a wholly-owned subsidiary of its majority-owned subsidiary CSI Solar Co., Ltd. has entered into an investment agreement with the municipal government of Haidong City in Qinghai Province. Under the Agreement, CSI Solar plans to build a facility with an annual capacity of approximately 50,000 tons of high-purity polysilicon later in 2022, as the initial project in an effort to build a solar manufacturing industrial park in Haidong. The facility is expected to commence production in mid-2024.
Subject to market conditions and approvals from its board of directors, CSI Solar may also build other manufacturing facilities, including ingots, wafers, cells, modules and other auxiliary materials, in the Haidong solar manufacturing industrial park.
Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, commented, "We are pleased to further increase the level of vertical integration of our manufacturing capacity by adding polysilicon production capabilities. This will help us better control costs, technology and product quality, and thereby further improve our pricing power and margins. Furthermore, approximately 90% of Qinghai's installed power capacity is clean energy. Having our solar manufacturing facilities located in Qinghai will help us meaningfully reduce the carbon footprint of our products, especially considering the high energy consumption for manufacturing polysilicon."