Canadian Solar has secured a €50 million (US$59.7 million) bilateral corporate facility with Banco Santander to support its project development efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
The company will also use the funds to expand its presence in operations and maintenance, asset management, battery storage and energy trading, said CEO Shawn Qu, adding: “The EMEA region is going through a significant acceleration in deployment of solar PV, and it is one of the key pillars of growth of our global energy business.”
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Composed of a term loan and a revolving credit facility of equal amounts, the facility is the second agreement between Canadian Solar’s European subsidiary and Santander in the past year.
As of the first quarter of 2021, Canadian Solar has a global PV project pipeline of 21GWp, of which nearly 4GWp is in EMEA, specifically in Italy, Spain, the UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel and South Africa.
Adding to the Santander loan deal, the company last month launched a US$150 million fundraise to bolster its growth in the battery storage segment. Its battery storage project development pipeline stands at 17GWh, of which more than 1GWh corresponds to projects in EMEA.
In the first quarter of 2021, Canadian Solar reached 3.1GW of module shipments, up 42% year-on-year, but the company’s manufacturing arm was hit by increased rising raw material and transportation costs.