Canadian Solar Inc. (the “Company”, or “Canadian Solar”) (NASDAQ: CSIQ), one of the world’s largest solar power companies, announced that it recently signed a power purchase agreement (“PPA”) with BTG Pactual (“BTG”, B3: BPAC11) and that it was awarded with two projects in a private auction by Furnas Centrais Elétricas (“Furnas”) for a total of 862 MWp in solar power projects in Brazil.
For the 12-year PPA with BTG, Canadian Solar will supply solar energy from a 170 MWp cluster of projects located in the State of Minas Gerais. The projects will start construction in 2021 and are expected to achieve commercial operation by the end of 2022. BTG is one of the main investment banks in Latin America and runs one of the largest energy trading businesses in Brazil.
Furnas will purchase solar energy from two Canadian Solar projects through a 15-year PPA. Canadian Solar will develop and build both Furnas projects totalling 692 MWp. One of them, will be located in the State of Ceará and will have a capacity of 260 MWp. The second project is located in the State of Piuaà and will have a capacity of 432 MWp. Both projects will start construction in 2022 and are expected to reach commercial operation by the end of 2023.
Furnas is a majority-controlled subsidiary of Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras S.A. – Eletrobras (“Eletrobras”, NYSE: EBR). Furnas’ business is mainly in energy generation, transmission and sales. It operates in 16 Brazilian states and is the owner of 21 hydro plants, 2 thermal plants, 1 wind farm and 30,000 kilometers of transmission lines.
Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, commented, “We are pleased to partner with BTG and Furnas to deliver clean solar energy to Brazilian consumers. I am also proud of our team’s great work in expanding our leadership position in the solar project development market in Brazil. After the 274 MWp in corporate PPAs that we signed earlier in June, the volume of projects secured in this PPA and auction is the largest in Canadian Solar’s history, and it increases our backlog of solar projects in Brazil with PPAs (or equivalent) to almost 2.2 GWp.”
“We are also making good progress on our project monetization strategy in Brazil, where we are in the process of forming a Brazilian Participation Fund for Infrastructure projects, or FIP-IE, which is on track to launch in 2021. This will help accelerate our growth in the Brazilian market as we optimize our capital allocation. More updates to come.”
All projects will use Canadian Solar’s latest, high power series 7 bifacial modules of up to 665 Wp.
