Solar module manufacturer Canadian Solar has delivered its first 700W tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules, which were made in the US, to US solar distributor Signature Solar.
The company announced its TOPBiHiKu7 series of modules at the Intersolar Europe event, held in Germany last June. The range of bifacial modules includes six products with a power capacity of 675-700W.
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These modules have a power conversion efficiency of up to 22.7%, and Canadian Solar corporate senior vice president Thomas Koerner announced that he “could not be happier about this partnership and friendship” with Signature Solar on LinkedIn.
Koerner also noted that Signature Solar would sell Canadian Solar’s full range of battery storage products, and the successful deployment of both battery products and TOPCon panels is an encouraging sign for Canadian Solar, which has refocused on TOPCon manufacturing, in particular, in recent years. In November 2022, the company forecasted that TOPCon modules would account for 30% of its total module shipments by the end of 2023.
The Canadian Solar modules are produced at the company’s facility in Mesquite, Texas, a plant with an annual nameplate production capacity of 5GW that started commercial operations last year. This is the company’s first manufacturing facility in the US, and will look to benefit from the increased desire for US-based manufacturing underpinned by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The news follows encouraging developments for Canadian Solar. In the first three quarters of 2023, the company shipped a more module capacity than in the entirety of 2022, as demonstrated in the graph below.
However, the company also noted that it expects its module shipments to shrink by around 8% in the fourth quarter of 2023, and while Canadian Solar has not yet published its financial results for the final quarter of the year, this concern suggests that 2023 could be a high point for the company’s module shipments, rather than the start of sustained growth in sales.
Canadian Solar also saw its net revenues fall by 22% between the second and third quarters of 2023, due to lower-than-expected module sales, and a decrease in the average module selling price.