Canadian Solar Invests in Strategic Partnership with AI Energy Storage Optimization Company Habitat Energy

GUELPH, Ontario and Oxford, UK, May 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Canadian Solar Inc. ("Canadian Solar") (NASDAQ: CSIQ) today announced it has executed a strategic partnership and investment with Habitat Energy Limited ("Habitat Energy"), a UK-based market leader in power trading and asset optimization services for battery storage assets that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning. The partnership will allow Canadian Solar to offer enhanced technology solutions for developers and owners of battery storage assets to capture additional revenue from trading optimization, while improving grid stability and contributing to the global energy transition to a cleaner, smarter and more efficient power grid.

Habitat Energy provides state-of-the-art optimization services for grid-scale battery storage assets, which includes a trading platform with full route-to-market capabilities for wholesale and balancing markets. Habitat Energy's proprietary software, PowerIQ, combines algorithmic forecasting and artificial intelligence to maximize asset performance and value. The software is supported by an experienced team of energy traders and has been delivering market leading revenue performance from their UK portfolio.

The partnership will leverage Canadian Solar's global scale and reach to provide system solutions and assets with optimization and dispatch services for the storage and solar solutions it provides globally. It also builds on the Habitat Energy platform's current global rollout and on their established presence in the UK and Australia.

Canadian Solar is currently one of the top providers of turnkey energy storage battery systems with vast experience in developing and executing renewable energy projects to offer highly bankable and competitive integrated energy storage solutions. The division is staffed by energy storage and renewable energy veterans who work closely with leading battery technology partners and project developers to provide innovative storage solutions. Canadian Solar also offers its energy storage customers long term operation and maintenance services including battery capacity augmentation, warranty-wrapped energy capacity and performance guarantees as well as safe and reliable system operations.

Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar said, "The power grid of tomorrow is not only built by renewable energy and battery storage, but crucially driven by artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, cloud computing and many more technologies. Habitat Energy is the proven leader in AI-enabled battery optimization and dispatch services. We strongly share Habitat Energy's belief that making merchant battery storage investable at scale is a vital step towards delivering a low carbon future and the preservation of our habitat for generations to come. Through this partnership, we will continue to de-risk and improve returns for project owners and investors, while contributing to a smarter, stabler, cleaner and more powerful global electric grid for global consumers."

Andrew Luers, Co-Founder and CEO of Habitat Energy commented, "We are very happy to announce this partnership with Canadian Solar. Storage-enabled renewables are critical to the energy transition and require continued innovation and collaboration across the entire value chain to achieve their full potential. We share Canadian Solar's mission to work toward a cleaner earth for future generations and look forward to working together on storage and solar plus storage projects around the world."

About Canadian Solar Inc.  

Canadian Solar was founded in 2001 in Canada and is one of the world's largest solar technology and renewable energy companies. It is a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules, provider of solar energy and battery storage solutions, and developer of utility-scale solar power and battery storage projects with a geographically diversified pipeline in various stages of development. Over the past 19 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 52 GW of premium-quality, solar photovoltaic modules to customers in over 150 countries. Likewise, since entering the project development business in 2010, Canadian Solar has developed, built and connected over 5.7 GWp in over 20 countries across the world. Currently, the Company has over 500 MWp of projects in operation, over 5 GWp of projects under construction or in backlog (late-stage), and an additional 15 GWp of projects in pipeline (mid- to early- stage). Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar and renewable energy industry, having been publicly listed on the NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the Company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.

About Habitat Energy

Habitat Energy was founded in 2017 to operate and manage battery storage assets, and is also now offering renewable energy offtake and management, whether co-located with storage or stand alone. Habitat has independently developed a market leading trading platform based on algorithmic and machine learning techniques that can handle the intensive forecasting and computational demands of battery storage and market optimization. Their system also incorporates deep insight into the physical capabilities and degradation of battery storage, offering a profit maximizing rather than revenue maximizing approach. Habitat was recently awarded the optimization contract for the world's largest solar powered vanadium flow battery in Australia, and currently operates over 200 MWh of storage assets in the UK. They have recently been ranked as the highest performing asset optimizer in terms of revenue per MW by independent third parties. For additional information about Habitat Energy follow them on LinkedIn or visit www.habitat.energy.com.

Canadian Solar's Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements  

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are made under the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "estimates," the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include general business and economic conditions and the state of the solar industry; governmental support for the deployment of solar power; future available supplies of high-purity silicon; demand for end-use products by consumers and inventory levels of such products in the supply chain; changes in demand from significant customers; changes in demand from major markets such as Japan, the U.S., India and China; changes in customer order patterns; changes in product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and declines in average selling prices; delays in new product introduction; delays in utility-scale project approval process; delays in utility-scale project construction; delays in the completion of project sales; delays in the process of qualifying to list the CSI Solar subsidiary in the PRC; continued success in technological innovations and delivery of products with the features customers demand; shortage in supply of materials or capacity requirements; availability of financing; exchange rate fluctuations; litigation and other risks as described in the Company's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 19, 2021. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of today's date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

SOURCE Canadian Solar Inc.