Canadian Solar Opens New Research Center and Signs Agreements With Leading R&D Organizations
TORONTO, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Canadian Solar Inc. ("the
Company", "CSI" or "we") (Nasdaq: CSIQ) today announced the official opening
of its new PV Cell Research Center. The new center is located in the Company's
solar cell Fab II in Suzhou and consolidates all of the Company's R&D
facilities in one place.
The purpose of the center is to improve the efficiency and production
yield of both regular polysilicon cells and our proprietary solar grade
e-cells. CSI has been actively investigating several high efficiency solar
cell structures, including selective emitter, N-type and back-contact cells.
The Company has signed research partnership contracts with DuPont, University
of Toronto and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The partnership with DuPont will
focus on improving our solar grade cells. The research center is the only
provincially accredited PV cell research center in Jiangsu Province. It is
currently staffed by 20 scientists, engineers and technicians, four of whom
have PhD's. The center will ultimately have a staff of 38. The 1500 M2
facility will cost a total of USD $10 million, with the bulk of the
expenditures paid in 2008.
Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO stated: "CSI is now executing a four-year
cell efficiency research program that will lead to better products and lower
costs. Both the solar-grade cells for our e-Modules and regular silicon cells
can benefit from this research. The program objective is to significantly
improve our cell conversion efficiency. Our goal is to bring our average cell
efficiency for polysilicon monocrystalline cells to 18.5% and solar grade
cells to 15.5% within 12 months. In this effort, we are proud to partner with
some of the world's leading R&D organizations including DuPont, University of
Toronto and Shanghai Jiao Tong University and look forward to jointly
exploring new materials and manufacturing methods in order to better our
efficiency and product development."
Founded in 2001, Canadian Solar Inc. (CSI) is a vertically integrated
manufacturer of solar cell, solar module and custom-designed solar application
products serving customers worldwide. CSI is incorporated in Canada and
conducts all of its manufacturing operations in China. Backed by years of
experience and knowledge in the solar power market and the silicon industry,
CSI has become a major global provider of solar power products for a wide
range of applications. For more information, please visit
http://www.csisolar.com .
Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements for Canadian Solar
Certain statements in this press release including statements regarding
expected future financial and industry growth are forward-looking statements
that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ materially. These statements are made under the "Safe
Harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms
as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "estimates," the negative
of these terms, or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause
actual results to differ include general business and economic conditions and
the state of the solar industry; governmental support for the deployment of
solar power; future shortage or availability of the supply of high-purity
silicon; demand for end-use products by consumers and inventory levels of such
products in the supply chain; changes in demand from significant customers,
including customers of our silicon materials sales; changes in demand from
major markets such as Germany; changes in customer order patterns; changes in
product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and
declines in average selling price; delays in new product introduction;
continued success in technological innovations and delivery of products with
the features customers demand; shortage in supply of materials or capacity
requirements; availability of financing; exchange rate fluctuations;
litigation and other risks as described in the Company's SEC filings,
including its annual report on Form 20-F originally filed on June 3, 2008.
Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward
looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level
of activity, performance, or achievements. You should not place undue reliance
on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press
release is as of today's date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar
undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under
applicable law.
For more information, please contact:
In Toronto, Canada
Alex Taylor, IR Director
Canadian Solar Inc.
Phone: +1-905-530-2334
Fax: +1-905-530-2001
Email: ir@csisolar.com
In the U.S.
Joseph Villalta
The Ruth Group
Phone: +1-646-536-7003
Email: jvillalta@theruthgroup.com
