- Canadian Solar’s CSI Solar has unveiled its annual production capacity expansion plans
- Entire vertical integration value chain will expand in 2023 and 2024 with all of it being n-type
- The company explains the rationale behind it as the need to meet strong market demand and control costs
Vertically integrated solar PV manufacturer Canadian Solar Inc has revealed its solar manufacturing roadmap for 2024, aiming to add more than 40 GW module production capacity from 32.2 GW at December 2022-end to a total of 75 GW by March 2024-end, with all of it being n-type.
Solar module manufacturing capacity will expand to 36.7 GW by June 2023, and to 50 GW by December 2023, as revealed by the company recently (see Canadian Solar Shipped Over 21 GW Modules In 2022).
“All our new capacity additions for 2023 and 2024 will be in the latest N-type technology, enabling us to better meet strong market demand and accelerate growth,” said Canadian Solar Chairman and CEO Dr Shawn Qu.
The Canada headquartered company is firing on all fronts as ingot, wafer and cell capacities too go up significantly as per the expansion plan shared by its majority owned subsidiary CSI Solar.
For ingot, the plan is to expand from 20.4 GW in December 2022, straight up to 50.4 GW by end of Q1/2024. For wafers, the plan is to add 15 GW in 6 months, from 20 GW at the end of December 2022, eventually ending 2023 at 35 GW. By the end of March 2024, it will be raised further to 50 GW.
As for cell capacity, the strategy is to expand from 19.8 GW at the end of last year to 26 GW by June 2023, reaching 50 GW by December 2023 and to 60 GW by Q1/2024.
Qu added, “In addition, by increasing the level of vertical integration, we continue to improve our control over technology, raw material sources and costs. These business plans will help us further strengthen our long-term leadership position not just across our end markets but also throughout our supply chain positioning.”
Canadian Solar just announced widening the job description of its North America focused utility scale solar and storage projects developer Recurrent Energy to look after its global development and services business (see Canadian Solar Expands Recurrent’s Role).
