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."
About Canadian Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: CSIQ)
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
