Canadian Solar Inc. (the "Company", "we" or "Canadian Solar") (NASDAQ: CSIQ), one of the world's largest solar companies, today announced that it delivers 1 MW of high efficiency ELPS solar modules for a research and testing plant – installed by Nordwest Solar - in the German area Emsland. In various zones of the 3 hectare-sized solar park located in Werlte different characteristics of solar modules will be tested in order to achieve new insights to increase efficiency. Construction is planned to start in June. The PV plant is one of the first projects in Germany where Canadian Solar's ELPS technology will be installed.
The research and testing plant with a capacity of 1 MW was initiated by Institut fur Erneuerbare Energien GmbH & Co. KG (IEE), 3N-Kompetenzzentrum Niedersachsen Netzwerk Nachwachsende Rohstoffe and the municipality Werlte. Due to their delivery reliability Grosshandelszentrum fur Photovoltaik Redpoint Solar GmbH was selected as supplier for the system components of the solar testing field. Right from the planning stage of this challenging project and the installation of the i.a. ELPS solar modules of Canadian Solar the IEE has relied on experience and competence and cooperates with Nordwest Solar Energiesysteme GmbH, one of the leading companies in the PV industry.
"The Northern part of Germany is incorrectly seen to be less interesting for PV installations. We want to show which advantages result from lower temperatures and therefore a lower decrease of performance of the modules. Thus we have chosen the technologically leading Canadian Solar modules with the new ELPS technology," said Jorg Klingenberg (IEE). Canadian Solar's ELPS cells feature a Metal Wrap Through (MWT) design, and can absorb 3% more light per cell. As a result, ELPS modules deliver up to 7% more electricity than similar configuration conventional solar modules.
"Increasing efficiency is the most important topic for the solar industry. With our ELPS technology we made a big leap as our most recent in-house test showed results of 21.1 percent efficiency with our proprietary mono ELPS solar cell. Therefore we are very pleased that this technology will be used in Werlte," said Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar.