Canadian Solar Inc said it formed a joint venture to build a 600 megawatt (MW) wafer plant in Suzhou in Eastern China, with a unit of polysilicon producer GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd.
The total cost for the first phase of the project will be $77 million and the majority will be financed through debt, while the rest will be financed through registered capital, the solar panel maker said.
Canadian Solar, which operates mainly in China, said the initial capacity of 600 MW can be expanded to 1.2 gigawatt.
The plant will enable it to reach about 2 GW of internal solar cell capacity during the first quarter of 2012.
Ontario, Canada-based Canadian Solar’s shares closed at $9.28 on Friday on Nasdaq.
