Solar PV Investor Forums

Was just looking at Skypower's website, and under the career tab they posted an open position in September for a project manager. Not that that's newsworthy, but the company background summary was pretty interesting;

Background:
Boasting one of the most impressive pipelines of solar projects in North America, SkyPower Global is one of the world's largest developers and owners of solar energy projects. SkyPower's portfolio includes 250 megawatts (MW) of awarded power purchase contracts, an additional 67 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity operating today and a pipeline total of more than 2.0 gigawatts (GW) at various stages of development worldwide. SkyPower sources, develops, finances, owns and operates solar energy projects from the initial discovery stages through to commercial operation. We have offices in 22 countries supporting our development efforts in over 70 countries around the world. SkyPower is committed to helping communities meet their increasing demands for greater investment in clean, non-emitting solar energy. For more information about SkyPower, please visit www.skypower.com.

They had stated they had over a 2 GW pipeline in the previous CSIQ press releases, which is impressive in itself, but what I didn't know is that they have offices in 22 countries supporting efforts in 70 counties! I wonder if this is part of the CSIQ/Skypower global joint venture build-out. Since the US company CIM Group owns Skypower, there is a lot of financial muscle behind this partnership.

I expect we'll be hearing a lot more about this next year, but it certainly bodes well for CSIQ's future expanding global project presence and potential pipelines.

Looks like SkyPower has completely re-done their website. Wasn't much to it before, with little real information. But this new site is greatly expanded and well set-up IMO.

Some comments from the new site;

The new joint venture is called CSSKY..."In June 2012, SkyPower entered into a 50:50 joint venture agreement with Canadian Solar Inc. (CSI) called CSSKY."

Also, on majority Owner CIM Group; "CIM Group manages over $9.5 billion in assets"

But most interesting was, under the About Us tab;

"Skypower has over 250 megawatts (MW) of awarded power purchase contracts including 67 MW of installed capacity operating today. These projects have produced over 100 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity to date. Our pipeline includes more than 8,400 MW at various stages of development worldwide. With offices in over 24 countries across the globe, SkyPower helps local markets meet their increasing needs for new investment in cleaner energy solutions."

and under Projects;

"6,800 MW in applications— One of the largest development pipelines of solar projects in North America"

So, they now have offices in over 24 countries globally (was 22 in Sept.)...interesting that they chose "in over"...must not want to be continually updating the site because they're expanding so quickly???

And 6.8 GW in applications (over 2 GW in development stage) in North America, with 8.4 GW worldwide, means they have about 1.6 GW outside of North America. Not too bad considering they just started the joint-venture with CSIQ about 6-months ago.

The more I look at this relationship they've forged with Skypower, the more I like it. They're both going to go a lot farther than they could have done by themselves...even taking into acount the 50:50 split...IMO). I think the long-term significance of this joint venture when announced totally flew under the radar screen and has been almost completely ignored to date by analysts and shorter-term investors (since no real impact to the bottom line would be expected until 2014 at the earliest). But for long-term (multi-year) investors like me, watching Skypower's exploding growth has me very excited about CSIQ's future prospects for many years down the road.

(Just a thought not backed up by a single fact...wouldn't it make sense at some point for the CIM group to just buy-out CSI, and just become one huge global force in the solar development industry?...it will probably never be cheaper than now to buy up a company like CSI). To be clear though, I personally would prefer a long multi-year run up on company valuation (then the buyout... ), rather than a quick short-term return, unless that amount was really worth it...

The pipeline seem immense. Good for CSIQ.