CANADIAN SOLAR SECURES JPY16 BILLION CREDIT FACILITY FROM SHINSEI BANK
GUELPH, Ontario — Canadian Solar Inc. (the “Company”, or “Canadian Solar”) (NASDAQ: CSIQ), one of the world’s largest solar power companies, today announced that it has secured a non-recourse project finance facility of up to JPY16 billion ($149 million) from Shinsei Bank, Limited (“Shinsei Bank”) for its 53.4 MWp Oita Hijimachi solar power project.
The non-recourse facility has an 18.5-year tenor, with debt repayment flexibility in 2019 to enable a potential sale of the solar power project to Canadian Solar Infrastructure Fund, Inc., recently listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Oita Hijimachi solar power project is located on Kyushu Island in southern Japan. Construction of the project commenced in November 2017. Canadian Solar will supply approximately 160,000 CS6U MaxPower solar panels. The project is expected to begin commercial operation in May 2019 and will sell its electricity generation to Kyushu Electric Power Company, Inc. under a 20-year feed-in-tariff contract at the highest rate of JPY40.0 ($0.37) per kWh.
“Today’s announcement marks our largest non-recourse credit facility raised in Japan. We are delighted to have Shinsei Bank provide us with low cost, flexible and rapidly deployable debt to fund the construction of our largest project this year,” commented Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar. “We have secured JPY65 billion of project financing over the past 3 years, a testament to the superior quality of our project development and performance of our Japan assets.”
About Canadian Solar Inc.
Founded in 2001 in Canada, Canadian Solar is one of the world’s largest and foremost solar power companies. As a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy solutions, Canadian Solar also has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale power projects in various stages of development. In the past 16 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 25 GW of premium quality modules to over 100 countries around the world. Furthermore, Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar industry, having been publicly listed on NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.
Canadian Solar Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are made under the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “estimates,” the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include general business and economic conditions and the state of the solar industry; governmental support for the deployment of solar power; future available supplies of high-purity silicon; demand for end-use products by consumers and inventory levels of such products in the supply chain; changes in demand from significant customers; changes in demand from major markets such as Japan, the U.S., India and China; changes in customer order patterns; changes in product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and declines in average selling prices; delays in new product introduction; delays in utility-scale project approval process; delays in utility-scale project construction; delays in the completion of project sales; continued success in technological innovations and delivery of products with the features customers demand; shortage in supply of materials or capacity requirements; availability of financing; exchange rate fluctuations; litigation and other risks as described in the Company’s SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 27, 2017. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of today’s date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
Source: Canadian Solar Inc.
