Home-Away-From-Home for Families in San Diego with Hospitalized Children Celebrates One-Year Anniversary with Solar Electric System

ONTARIO, Canada, and SAN DIEGO, Calif.—June 30, 2010—Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego, Canadian Solar Inc. ("the Company," "Canadian Solar" or "we") (Nasdaq: CSIQ), one of the world's largest solar companies, and HelioPower, a leading solar power engineering and installation firm, announced today a new 116kW roof-mount photovoltaic (PV) solar electric system at the Ronald McDonald House of San Diego at 2929 Children's Way in San Diego. This is the first Ronald McDonald House in California to use solar energy to help power the House that supports families with seriously ill children in local hospitals.

Ronald McDonald House of San Diego will serve more than 20,000 families this year alone, and the solar electric installation will help offset the electrical needs of the families with clean energy. This month, the House celebrates the one-year anniversary of its 47-bedroom House for overnight guests and its Family Care Center, which serves as a day-time refuge for anyone with a child in a San Diego hospital.

"The Ronald McDonald House ensures families in San Diego receive the necessities they need as they care for their sick child , and we are so pleased to be able to provide our high-quality modules to this pivotal community facility," said Mike Miskovsky, U.S. general manager of Canadian Solar, Inc. "Through its leadership in California implementing a renewable energy solution, the Ronald McDonald House of San Diego will reap significant financial savings while contributing to environmental sustainability for years to come."

The Ronald McDonald House of San Diego solar electric system will produce an average of 147,846 kilowatt hours (kW/h) per year. The environmental offset is equivalent to curtailing the release of 151,420 pounds of carbon dioxide each year, or planting 554 new trees and sequestering the carbon dioxide over their lifetime.

The solar installation was designed and constructed by HelioPower and financed by Helio Micro Utility, and consists of 518 Canadian Solar CS6P-220P polycrystalline modules. These modules are among the top-ranked in the industry in PV USA (PTC) ratings, which are quickly becoming universally accepted standards for measuring real-world module energy production and performance. PV Powered, Inc., an Advanced Energy company, supplied the 100kW inverter. Canadian Solar, HelioPower and PV Powered all donated price reductions to benefit the charity.

"Ronald McDonald House decided to pursue solar energy to create a healthy and sustainable environment for the children and families we serve, and to help greatly offset power costs," said Bill Lennartz, president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House of San Diego. "Our partners have been vital to our success as a resource to families in some of the most challenging times of their lives, and we are excited to now be producing clean solar energy to help us provide care to even more families."

The solar installation is part of the Ronald McDonald House of San Diego's pursuit of U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. The House was built according to strict green building standards, using a combination of high-efficiency mechanical systems and envelope and lighting design; it uses 17.5 percent less energy than a typical building in California. Materials used to create the building contain significant amounts of recycled content, and the building provides recycling collection stations to all house guests and employees.

"This is the first Ronald MacDonald House in California to go solar," said Steve LoRusso, vice president of commercial sales at HelioPower. "Working with our affiliate company, Helio Micro Utility, we developed the critical solar financing structure that worked for them as a nonprofit entity and supported their green building goals."

"Ronald McDonald House of San Diego makes life easier and more comfortable for many families in need. We are honored to be a part of helping so many people by providing our inverter, with its field-proven reliability and uptime, to this important solar installation" said Erick Petersen, VP of Sales and Marketing at PV Powered.

About Ronald McDonald House Of San Diego:
For 30 years, San Diego's RMHC has provided more than 140,000 nights of lodging for more than 14,000 families whose children face life-threatening illnesses and are receiving treatment at area hospitals. With the opening of the new House located atop a six-story parking garage across from Rady Children's Hospital, the new 47- bedroom Ronald McDonald House quadruples the size of the old 12-bedroom House. It features a new Family Care Center that is open daily to anyone with a child in an area hospital and will serve the needs of 20,000 families each year. The Center offers dining services, a computer lab, arts and crafts room, children's play room, teen center, play yard, faith room, outdoor play areas, laundry, day resting rooms and shower facilities.

RMHC is a 501(C) (3) non-profit that receives 10 percent of its funding from local McDonald's Restaurant owners and operators. The remaining 90 percent needed to operate the house and serve families must be raised through donations from individuals and fundraisers. For more information visit www.rmhcsd.org or call (858) 467-4750.

About Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSIQ)
Canadian Solar Inc. is one of the world's largest solar companies. As a leading vertically integrated provider of ingot, wafer, solar cell, solar module and other solar applications, Canadian Solar designs, manufactures and delivers solar products and solar system solutions for on-grid and off-grid use to customers worldwide. With operations in North America, Europe and Asia, Canadian Solar provides premium quality, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly solar solutions to support global, sustainable development. For more information, visit www.canadiansolar.com.

U.S. offices: 12657 Alcosta Blvd, Suite 140, San Ramon, CA 94583
Telephone: 1-925-866-2700
Fax: 1-925-866-2704

About HelioPower
HelioPower has engineered over 1000 solar power solutions for residential, commercial, community and utility scale partners since 2001 in the Western states and serves clients worldwide. Customer testimonials are available at www.HelioPower.com. HelioPower can also be reached toll free at 1.87.SOLAR.888/1.877.652.7888.

About PV Powered
PV Powered is an innovation leader for grid-tied PV inverters in the residential, commercial and utility markets, setting new industry standards for innovation in reliability and efficiency. Recently acquired by Advanced Energy Industries (Nasdaq: AEIS), the company has pioneered the use of advanced reliability engineering to design inverters with a 20+ year operating life. PV Powered received a Stage 2 award under the Solar Energy Grid Integration System (SEGIS) program by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), using it to lead a team of recognized distributed energy and smart grid partners in developing innovations that increase energy harvest, reduce the cost of PV systems, and remove barriers to high levels of PV grid penetration. For more information on the company, visit www.pvpowered.com.
Contact Information
For Canadian Solar
Schwartz Communications, Inc.
Gina Titus
415-512-0770
CanadianSolar@schwartz-pr.com

For HelioPower
Glenna Wiseman
760 518 6158
GWiseman@HelioPower.com

For Ronald McDonald House San Diego
Mary Schmidt-Krebs, APR
(760) 931-0775
mary@mesaincorporated.com

Kim Lande
(760) 635-3318
kim@landeink.com

For PV Powered, Inc.
Erick Petersen
(541) 312-3832
erickpetersen@pvpowered.com

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