Canadian Solar Announces Q1 Results and a Solar Project in India

Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ), one of the world’s largest solar power companies made multiple announcements this week including its first quarter 2018 results and that a solar portfolio in India has officially reached commercial operations.

In terms of the financial results released on Wednesday (May 16), the company highlighted that its net revenue was $1.42 billion as compared to $1.11 billion in the previous quarter. Total solar module shipments were 1,374 MW as compared to 1,831 MW in the previous quarter.

It was also noted that Q1 guidance range was between 1.30 GW and 1.35 GW.

That said, the company’s gross profit took a dip in Q1 2018, down to $143.9 million compared to $218.6 million in Q4 2017..

“The capacity utilization level was lower than the fourth quarter of 2017, due to several reasons, including seasonally low demand and holidays in China, the Section 201 safeguard decision on solar products by the US government and the safeguard trade investigations in India,” Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of the company said in the release. Qu continued, and stated the company also completed in Q1 the sale of three solar power plants.

Prior to releasing its Q1 2018 results, the company announced on Tuesday (May 15) that its 35MWp project located in Bagalkot District of Karnataka, India is expected to generate approximately 54,000 MWh of clean solar power every year.

“We are delighted to launch our first C&I solar portfolio in India which creates sustainable value for our customers. Local businesses can benefit from clean solar energy while mitigating rising electricity costs,” Qu said.

The project which reached commercial operations in March 2018 is expected to provide clean electricity to education, healthcare, cement and auto parts industries through the 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs).

The company also said that the PPA’s are in line with the Open Access regulations of Karnataka.

Bloomberg in its Q1 Clean Energy Investment report said that Indian investment in clean energy space is likely to increase in the years ahead, as investors try to meet the government’s ‘ambitious’ target of 100 GW of solar by 2022.

The report further said that investment in clean energy space in India in Q1 2018 was just shy of $4 billion. In 2017, India saw an investment of $11 billion, a decline from its 2016 high of $13.7 billion which was the second highest investment in a decade for the country.

For Canadian Solar, this is the third project that has reached commercial stage in India after the Alpine Knits Hybrid system in Tamil Nadu, a solar project at IGI Airport in New Delhi and Gajner Bikaner project in Rajasthan.

Following the announcements, Canadian Solar closed the trading at $17.40 on Thursday (May 17) and the stock was down 0.63 percent over the one day trading period. Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch maintained a Buy rating on Canadian Solar Inc with a target price of $19.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.