Canadian Solar has launched a utility-scale energy storage product and announced a battery manufacturing capacity target of 10GWh by end-2023, up from 2.5GWh today.
The vertically integrated solar PV and storage company, based in Ontario but with manufacturing mainly in China, has launched SolBank, a proprietary designed and manufactured energy storage battery solution.
The product uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells and has an energy capacity of up to 2.8MWh per unit, and comes with liquid cooling and humidity control and an active balancing battery management system (BMS).
It is being launched by subsidiary CSI Energy Storage which is producing the SolBank at its workshops in Jiangsu Province in China. The current annual battery manufacturing output capacity there is 2.5GWh and is expected to reach 10GWh by the end of 2023, the company said.
This includes the manufacturing of its own proprietary designed battery modules, packs and containerisation into ready-to-go energy storage system solutions.
The company will provide all the wrap-around services alongside the SolBank solution, including full commissioning and integration services, turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project execution and long-term operational and maintenance (O&M) services.
Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, commented: “Our manufacturing capacity in battery storage will spur the continued growth of our battery storage solutions business, which will in turn enhance the synergies with our battery storage project development business. Solar plus battery storage will be one of the key solutions to combat climate change. We look forward to working together with our existing and new partners and contribute to global decarbonisation efforts.”
Canadian Solar said CSI Energy Storage has an energy storage system integration pipeline of 11GWh, including 861MWh under long-term service agreements, 1.9GWh under construction or contracted and an additional earlier stage pipeline of 8.2GWh. However, its project development businesses, including Recurrent Energy in the US, have a pipeline of more than 31GWh of battery energy storage projects.
The CSI Energy Storage Team will be showcasing the new storage system at RE+ in Anaheim, US, next week from 19-22 September. Members of the Solar Media editorial team from both Energy-Storage.news and PV Tech will also be in attendance.
