GUELPH, ON, Oct. 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Canadian Solar Inc. (the "Company", or "Canadian Solar") (NASDAQ: CSIQ), announced today that it has closed a supply contract and long term service agreement with Goldman Sachs Renewable Power LLC, part of the Renewable Power Group of Goldman Sachs Asset Management ("Goldman Sachs"), to deliver and integrate a 75 MW / 300 MWh lithium-ion battery storage solution into the 100 MWac Mustang solar plant in California.
The 75 MW or 4-hour 300 MWh energy storage system is a retrofit addition to the Mustang solar plant in King's County, California, which was originally developed by Canadian Solar's wholly owned subsidiary Recurrent Energy, LLC ("Recurrent Energy"). The solar plant was connected to the grid in August 2016 and the project's equity stake was later sold to Goldman Sachs in May 2019.
Canadian Solar will provide the complete integrated solution, including a lithium iron phosphate-based technology package, and all future operations, maintenance and battery augmentation services. In addition, the Company will support the storage solution with fully wrapped capacity and performance guarantees, ensuring system output, reliability and safety. Construction of the energy storage component of the project will begin in early 2021 and is expected to be operational by the second half of 2021.
By pairing solar PV with advanced battery technology, Canadian Solar helps its customers to generate and store solar power during the day for use in the evening. This approach allows California's power grid to absorb and integrate higher levels of reliable, safe and affordable renewable energy while contributing to the state's climate mitigation efforts.
Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, commented, "We are pleased to start supplying this large-scale solar plus energy storage project which will be fully developed by Canadian Solar with our own proprietary technological capabilities. The adoption and integration of energy storage will improve the utilization of solar energy and meaningfully enlarge our global addressable market."
Dr. Qu added, "We are excited to partner again with Goldman Sachs to deliver clean, cost effective and end-to-end solar energy and storage solutions to our customers and local communities. Despite the challenging market backdrop due to the pandemic, our teams continue to develop innovative technology solutions and execute our business plan. This is a landmark project, the first of many more to come."
About Canadian Solar Inc.
Canadian Solar was founded in 2001 in Canada and is one of the world's largest solar power companies. It is a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy and storage solutions and has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale solar power projects in various stages of development. Over the past 19 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 46 GW of premium-quality, solar photovoltaic modules to customers in over 150 countries. Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar industry, having been publicly listed on NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the Company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.
About Goldman Sachs Renewable Power LLC
Goldman Sachs Renewable Power LLC is a privately held company managed the Renewable Power Group of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM). GSRP is the sponsor of more than 800 solar projects across 27 U.S. states that collectively have a capacity of more than 1.8 gigawatts of clean, renewable power. GSAM's Renewable Power Group is comprised of investment professionals with leading industry expertise across transaction sourcing, financial analysis, power markets and physical asset analysis and operations. The team takes a long-term ownership approach to the operations and management of renewable assets and benefits from Goldman Sachs' extensive network of relationships, leading institutional infrastructure and in-house industry knowledge and experience. The Renewable Power Group is part of GSAM, one of the world's leading asset managers with approximately $1.9 trillion in assets under supervision globally as of June 30, 2020.
Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release 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 available supplies 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; changes in demand from major markets such as Japan, the U.S., India and China; changes in customer order patterns; changes in product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and declines in average selling prices; delays in new product introduction; delays in utility-scale project approval process; delays in utility-scale project construction; delays in the completion of project sales; delays in the process of qualifying to list the MSS subsidiary in the PRC; 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 filed on April 28, 2020. 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. Investors 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.
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