Canadian Solar, the world’s fifth-largest solar PV module manufacturer, recently stated that it had experienced limited impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on its production facilities in China. Although the company faced severe disruptions from January-mid by way of capacity loss amidst the COVID-19 carnage, it did not have a large impact on the production facilities, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
China is the biggest solar PV equipment manufacturing hub in the entire globe and Canadian Solar has almost 73% of the manufacturing capability located in China.
China, which is home to majority of the global top 10 solar PV manufacturers (in terms of module shipments) such as Jinko Solar, JA Solar, Trina Solar, LONGi Solar, Risen Energy, GCL System and Suntech, is facing the heat for being the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic hit province Zhejiang is home to a few manufacturing centers belonging to JinkoSolar, Solar Module Super League (SMSL), and JA Solar.
Somik Das, Senior Power Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “While China is fighting to get back to work at a slow pace, many factories have not yet started operating at full capacity due to reduced staff and raw materials. Solar PV manufacturers such as Trina Solar have put forth the possibilities of production delays.
“However, Canadian Solar’s manufacturing subsidiaries in China are located in Jiangsu, Changshu province, which has not been seriously impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, they were able to resume the production post extended Chinese new year holidays.”
Canadian Solar stated that the impact on its delivery schedule is mostly limited to the capacity loss in the last week of January 2020 and the first 10 days of February 2020.
Das concludes: “Since mid-February 2020, the production, facilities have been re-started with limited cases of production hiccups. The company had been preparing for any impact on the cross-border logistics and project construction timelines based on different country plans regarding self-quarantine and complete lockdowns amidst the pandemic outburst. This preparation is helping the company to stand strong in these times.”
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