Canadian Solar starts 68 MWp solar power project in Mexico 

Canadian_Solar from theglobeandmail.com

Canadian Solar announced its first solar power project of 68 MWp in Mexico started commercial operations in January 2019.

Canadian Solar has supplied over 200,000 poly modules CS6U-P to the solar plant, located in Aguascalientes, Mexico. 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.

The project created 535 jobs during the PV plant construction and will create more than 15 new jobs for operations and maintenance during the next 20 years. Canadian Solar will provide operations and maintenance services to the plant.

Canadian Solar CEO Shawn Qu said: “We have a remaining pipeline of 368 MWp of solar projects in Mexico with awarded power purchase agreements. Construction of these late-stage projects will soon start and commercial operations will be achieved in 2020.”

Canadian Solar won the Aguascalientes project in the first Long Term Auction in Mexico in 2016. According to the contract agreement, the electricity generated will be sold to Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) under a 15-year PPA for energy and capacity, and 20-year for Clean Energy Certificates.

Canadian Solar earlier announced the company has shipped 2.6 GW of anti-LeTID PERC solar modules worldwide as of December 31, 2018.

Solar modules with Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) technology can significantly improve the module efficiency compared to standard modules with aluminum back surface field (Al BSF) cells, which significantly reduces solar system’s Balance of System (BOS) costs.

Canadian Solar’s P4 module that is based on black silicon and multi-PERC technology showed less than 0.3 percent degradation in open-circuit voltage (Voc) after 166 hours of light irradiation at 1 Sun and of 75°C testing conditions, a research report by University of New South Wales (UNSW) in November 2018 said.