Canadian Solar has provided an update on the status of its Japanese pipeline on the wake of announcements by Kyushu Electric Power to temporarily suspend grid connection approval pending evaluation of their respective grid capacity availability.
As confirmed earlier, Canadian Solar’s utility-scale project pipeline in Japan was of 405MW capacity by the end of second quarter 2014.
During the third quarter, the company added 85.5MW of new projects to its portfolio increasing its total project pipeline to 490.5MW.
Around 150MW of these projects have got approval for full grid connection and are in the construction permitting stage. Currently company is evaluating over 200MW of additional projects for acquisition. It is in an attempt to increase the late-stage pipeline in Japan to 550-600MW by the end of 2014.
Kyushu has temporarily suspended grid-connection approvals pending an evaluation of available grid capacity, which is expected to complete by the second quarter of 2015. Projects that have full grid connection approval are continuing.
Ten of the Company’s projects within the Kyushu area having a capacity of 95.6 MW have received full grid connection approval and only Shibushi-Uchinokura project totaling 2.3 MW has not received full grid connection approval, which is suspended.
Following Su Kyushu’s announcement, Hokkaido Electric Power (Hokkaido), Okinawa Electric Power (Okinawa), Tohoku Electric Power (Tohoku) and Shikoku Electric Power (Shikoku) also announced they are temporarily suspending grid connection approvals.
Canadian Solar has three projects in the Tohoku area totaling 135MW. The Company is partnering with Tohoku to develop these projects, targeted to reach commercial operation in late 2016 or 2017 with sufficient time to accommodate the utility’s grid capacity study.
In addition, the company does not expect the recent utility announcements to affect its near term solar module business.
Company is confident of the position in the Japanese market, both as a module supplier and project developer. The recent announcements by electric utilities are not expected to slow down projects that have already been approved.
Ultimately, it is beneficial to weed out some of the superficial projects so that those with good quality have better chance to advance. Everything will be on track for the Japanese project development business, explained, Shawn Qu, chairman, CEO, Canadian Solar.