Canadian Solar begins construction on Canada’s largest PV project

Canadian Solar Solutions, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, has started construction on the 100MWac Grand Renewable solar project in Ontario, Canada.

To be built in Haldimand County, the plant, to be financed by Connor Clark & Lunn Infrastructure, will include 440,000 Canadian Solar CS6X high performance modules.

The company will manufacture the PV modules and medium voltage power stations necessary for the project at its new facility in London, Ontario.

Once it becomes fully operational in 2015, the plant will be Canada’s largest PV project and will generate about 165,000MWh of clean energy annually, which is enough electricity to power around 13,750 homes.

Canadian Solar chairman and CEO Shawn Qu said that the Grand Renewable solar project has now entered the construction phase.

"We are highly confident in our team’s ability to complete this large-scale project on schedule and on budget, while creating new employment opportunities and achieving the optimum power efficiency generation target levels anticipated to be delivered by the project," added Qu.

Canadian Solar had received an engineering, procurement, and construction contract from Grand Renewable Solar, a subsidiary of Samsung Renewable Energy, for the plant in June 2013 and would generate revenue of about $301.1m from this contract.

The solar plant forms part of the 250MW Grand Renewable Energy Park (that also include 150MW Grand Renewable Wind), which is being developed by Samsung C&T.

The Ministry of the Environment had granted renewable energy approval to the renewable energy park on 15 June 2012.

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Image: Canadian Solar will construct Grand Renewable Solar. Photo: courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.