ONTARIO, Canada — Two
new solar energy farms will be built in Ontario, Canada, for Penn Energy
Renewables Ltd., says Canadian Solar Inc. Its Canadian Solar Solutions unit has
closed an 18.7 MW AC turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC)
contract and operations and maintenance agreement for the units. Construction
will begin in the third quarter of 2012, with the projects expected to be fully
operational in the summer of 2013.
The
solar farms are expected to produce enough electricity to power approximately
2,600 homes, preventing approximately 432,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide
emissions over a 20-year period. Planners say the installations could create
more than 100 new jobs during the development and construction phases. These
jobs will be in manufacturing, engineering and construction with additional
on-going positions created during the operation and maintenance phases.
Dr.
Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar, commented,
"We have built an impressive portfolio of projects and have a very robust
pipeline of attractive projects in Canada, the U.S. and Asia.
Canadian
Solar Inc. is a vertically integrated provider of ingots, wafers, solar cells
and solar modules for solutions for on-grid and off-grid use to customers
worldwide.
Penn
Energy Renewables Ltd. is the Canadian member of the Penn Group of Companies
which is headquartered just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Penn actively
develops, acquires and invests in utility-scale solar farms. In Ontario, Penn
Energy Renewables Ltd. has seven executed Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) contracts with
the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) for projects with power generation capacity
in excess of 60 megawatts AC.