Canadian Solar has raised annual revenue guidance for 2022 as its solar module shipments in Q2/2022 added up to 5.06 GW reaching higher end of its guidance, and on manufacturing side it now targets 50 GW module capacity by December 2023.

Its net revenues of $2.31 billion for Q2/2022 reflected an improvement of 62% over previous year and slightly exceeded the guided range of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion, thanks to higher project sales, higher shipment volumes and higher ASPs as well as due to significant growth in its battery storage solutions business.

Gross margin of 16.0% too went beyond the guidance. Net income of $74 million increased 709% QoQ and 561% YoY.

“We are off to a strong first half for 2022, and expect continued solar module volume growth through the remainder of the year as we ramp up capacity towards 2023 volume growth targets,” said company Chairman and CEO Dr Shawn Qu. “The second quarter will likely be the largest quarter of the year for us due to the timing of project sales and battery storage shipments. However, we expect profitability to remain healthy through the second half of the year, driven by continued manufacturing processing cost reductions and lower logistics costs partially offset by higher polysilicon prices.”

At the end of June 2022, the Global Energy solar project pipeline swelled to 26 GW and storage to over 31 GWh.

Manufacturing expansion

The management reiterated production capacity expansion plans for December 2022 at 20.4 GW, 20.0 GW, 19.8 GW and 32.0 GW for ingot, wafer, cell and modules, respectively. It will now aim for further expansion by December 2023 growing to a total of 25.0 GW ingot and wafer each, 35.0 GW for cell and 50.0 GW for modules.

Recently, Canadian Solar said it will invest RMB 60 billion in integrated solar manufacturing project in China which will mark its foray into in-house polysilicon production (see Gigantic RMB 60 Billion PV Manufacturing Plans From CSI).

“Over the years many companies have tried to backward integrate into polysilicon with few, if any, success stories. Adding polysilicon production capacity, in our view, is a challenging, risky, and expensive venture. We believe the company may be pursuing this expansion in part because the CSRC may want CSIQ to increase its margins,” opined Philip Shen of Roth Capital Partners. “We believe the Starboard listing could be done by October, and this is the key milestone for the company to pursue its poly capacity buildout strategy.”

Guidance

In Q3/2022, the management expects the company to report revenues within $2.0 billion to $2.1 billion, and gross margin within 15.0% to 16.5%. Shipments are forecast within 6.0 GW to 6.2 GW range, including some 140 MW to the company’s own projects.

The manufacturer anticipates higher solar module shipment volume in the next quarter but sees lower project sales and battery storage shipments.

Total module shipment guidance for 2022 remains the same at 20 GW to 22 GW, and for battery storage shipments between 1.8 GWh to 1.9 GWh for CSI Solar. Project sales for Global Energy division are guided as 2.1 GW to 2.6 GW.

However for 2022, it has now raised total revenue guidance to $7.5 billion to $8.0 billion, up from $7.0 billion to $7.5 billion (see Canadian Solar Declares Q1/2022 Financial Results).