Canadian Solar released its earnings report for 2Q21 on August 12. According to the report, the company’s net revenue more than doubled on a year-on-year basis, up 105% from US$696 million for 2Q20 to US$1.43 billion for 2Q21.
A breakdown of the company’s quarterly total revenue shows that the revenue from module sales came to US$1.149 billion (vs. US$663 million for 2Q20), and the revenue from its Global Energy segment came to US$280 million (vs. US$32.433 million for 2Q20).
The company’s net profit for 2Q21 was US$18.54 million, showing a drop of 9% compared with US$20.413 million for 2Q20. The earnings per share was US$0.19 in 2Q21, down from US$0.35 in 2Q20. The earnings per diluted share was US$0.18, down from US$0.34 in 2Q20.
Module and Project Sales
Canadian Solar said its module shipments for 2Q21 reached 3.7GW, which was at the top end of its guidance of 3.5-3.7GW. Regarding the performance of its PV project business in 2Q21, projects in development totaled around 22.2GW as of June 30. Projects under construction in the quarter totaled 1.7GW. Backlogged projects totaled 4.1GW at the end of the quarter. Backlogged projects are projects that have secured a development or construction permit and an interconnection agreement. Most of them have also secured either a FIT agreement or a PPA. Canadian Solar said backlogged projects will be built within the next one to four years. As for PV projects in the pipeline, they totaled around 16GW at the end of the quarter.
As for the performance of its energy storage project business in 2Q21, projects in development totaled around 19GWh as of June 30. Projects under construction, designated as backlogged, and in the pipeline totaled around 1.5GWh, 16.9GWh, and 800MWh respectively. The geographical distribution of the energy storage projects that are either in development or designated as backlogged is as follow: 9,285MWh in North America, 4,505MWh in Latin America, 1,242MWh in EMEA (Europe, the Mideast, and Africa), 19MWh in Japan, and 1,910MWh in the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan).
Canadian Solar also offers battery energy storage integration solutions. According to the company’s report, the integration solutions that are under construction as of June 30 totaled 861MWh. Looking ahead, the company forecasted that another 1,400MWh of integrated solutions will be contracted within the next 12 next months. The integrated solutions that are in the pipeline are estimated to have reached 6,612MWh at the end of 2Q21.
Production Capacity Figures
Canadian Solar has also updated the production capacity figures for its various products. As of the end of its fiscal year 2020, the company’s production capacity figures for ingots, wafers, cells, and modules reached 2.1GW, 6.3GW, 9.6GW, and 16.1GW respectively. As of the end of the first half of its fiscal year 2021, the company’s production capacity figures for ingots, wafers, cells, and modules came to 5.1GW, 8.7GW, 13.3GW, and 18.7GW respectively. The company also forecasts that by the end its fiscal 2021, its production capacity figures for ingots, wafers, cells, and modules will stand at 5.1GW, 11.5GW, 13.9GW, and 22.7GW respectively.
Moving to the guidance for 3Q21, Canadian Solar forecasts that module shipments for the period will be around 3.8-4.0GW, of which 275MW will be allocated to company’s own PV projects. The revenue from module sales is estimated around US$1.2-1.4 billion, and the gross margin of the company’s module production operation is estimated around 14-16%. For its fiscal year 2021, Canadian Solar projects that module shipments will total 16-17GW, project sales will total 1.8-2.3GW, and shipments of energy storage systems will total US$5.6-6.0 billion.
