Canadian Solar Inc.\u00a0(the “Company”, or “Canadian Solar”) (NASDAQ: CSIQ), one of the world’s largest solar power companies today announced its first solar power project of 68 MWp in\u00a0Mexico\u00a0started commercial operations in\u00a0January 2019.<\/p>\n
The solar plant, located in\u00a0Aguascalientes, Mexico, is powered by\u00a0over 200,000\u00a0Canadian Solar\u00a0high-efficiency poly modules\u00a0CS6U-P<\/a>. The plant will generate 145 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity annually, enough to power 20,690 households and offset 72,700 tons of carbon dioxide emission each year. In addition to that, a total of 535 jobs were created during the PV plant construction and more than 15 new jobs are expected to be created for operations and maintenance during the upcoming 20 years\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0plant is in operation<\/span>.\u00a0Canadian Solar\u00a0will provide\u00a0operations and maintenance services<\/a>\u00a0to the plant.<\/p>\n Dr.\u00a0Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of\u00a0Canadian Solar\u00a0commented, “Achieving commercial operations for the\u00a0Aguascalientes\u00a0project is a significant milestone for\u00a0Canadian Solar. This definitely strengthens our position as a leading solar project developer in\u00a0Mexico\u00a0and\u00a0Latin America.\u00a0Mexico\u00a0is a very important new market for us where we started solar project development business three years ago. We have a remaining pipeline of 368 MWp of solar projects in\u00a0Mexico\u00a0with awarded power purchase agreements. Construction of these late-stage projects will soon start and commercial operations will be achieved in 2020.”<\/p>\n Canadian Solar\u00a0competed for and won the\u00a0Aguascalientes project in the first Long Term Auction in\u00a0Mexico\u00a0in 2016. According to the contract agreement, the electricity generated will be sold to Comisi\u00f3n Federal de Electricidad\u00a0(CFE) under a 15-year PPA for energy and capacity, and 20-year for Clean Energy Certificates.<\/p>\n