Canadian Solar Makes First Delivery to US of its Bifacial Modules

Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ) announced on Wednesday (November 14) that it has delivered its first bifacial solar PV modules to the United States.

The company said that the bifacial solar PV modules, which have a capacity of 10 megawatts (MW) was delivered to Neighborhood Power for four solar power projects near Portland, Oregon.

Bifacial solar modules are able to generate energy from the front side as well as the back side, leading to higher return on investments as the overall system reduces cost of electricity when compared to traditional systems.

While bifacial modules come in various designs depending on the manufacturer, Canadian Solar said that its product is glass covered on the back side, which captures the sunlight on the ground for generating additional energy.

Depending on the conditions, the company said that its bifacial modules can increase daily energy yield by up to 20 percent as compared to traditional conventional polymer backsheet modules

In the release, Neighbourhood Power revealed that the bifacial modules will offset the new tariffs on solar modules and steel mounting equipment as implemented by the Trump administration.

In January, the Trump administration slapped up to 30 percent duties on solar panels, which costed the industry “billions” of dollars as several solar projects were shelved.

“When the solar industry was hit with tariffs on solar modules and steel, it seemed that rising landed costs had priced these projects out of the market,” Stephen Gates, president of Neighborhood Power, said in the release.

Dubbed by Canadian Solar as the  BiKu module, the product delivered to Neighbourhood Power has an integrated bifacial and Ku technologies. The Ku technology is a dual cell Low Internal Circuit enabled module. Additionally, the BiKu module can reach up to 370 MW on the front side alone and comes with a 30mm frame which carries additional economical gains on installation.

“Canadian Solar foresaw early on that bifacial technology had the potential to be a game changer in the economics of large-scale solar and set out to be a leader in the development and deployment of bifacial solar modules,” Shawn Qu, CEO of Canadian Solar, said in the release.

Following the announcement, shares of Canadian Solar were up 2.31 percent to close the trading session on Wednesday at US$13.71. The company’s shares opened at US$13.81 and touched a high of US$14.10. The stock has a “Sell” ranking on TradingView with 16 verticals against, eight in neutral and two in favor. Further, Canadian Solar has a “Moderate Sell” ranking on TipRanks with an analyst target price of US$15.33 representing a 12.64 percent upside from its current price.

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