Chinese solar cell and module manufacturer China Sunergy (CSUN) has announced plans to develop its first two solar parks in the UK which will each have a capacity of 5MW.
The news comes on the back of an earlier announcement in October which revealed that CSUN had signed a 50MW Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a view to expand its UK presence.
The two proposed plants will be located in Cornwall and Devon as confirmed by CSUN’s country manager Yolanda Qin at trade show Solar Power UK 2012. The locations were selected based on the fact that the sites receive a high irradiation of more than 1,000kWh a year per square metre.
CSUN will arrange the construction of the projects and when complete, will own and operate the two plants. Construction is expected to begin in the forthcoming weeks and the projects are expected to complete and connect to the grid by April 1, 2013 in order to qualify for 2 ROCs. Both projects will utilise CSUN’s polycrystalline modules.
With a total installed PV capacity of around 1.3GW in the UK at the end of September, China Sunergy belives that the UK market shows “promising potential”. The company will seek opportunities to increase its solar investments in the future.
Stephen Cai, CEO of China Sunergy, explained: “We will continue our downstream strategy, which is to increase the investment into solar projects globally. These two solar parks in the UK are just starting points for us and we look to expanding across Europe, including France, Germany, Romania, and Spain, etc., where we can achieve a healthy return rate on our projects.”
Cai added: “We are confident that our investment into these two solar projects in the UK will be a great success, based on China Sunergy’s capability to construct and operate solar projects with high returns. This investment not only marks our first official step into the downstream solar business, but also shows that China Sunergy always stays true to its commitment to bringing more clean energy to the world. We possess a solid pipeline of over 50MW by April 2013 for our downstream project business with sufficient project financing in place, demonstrating China Sunergy’s strategic shift in resource allocation amid current industry turmoil.”