Canadian Solar vs Growatt - solar panel manufacturer comparison
Canadian Solar has the broader catalog (292 vs 1 models). Canadian Solar leads on peak efficiency at 24.40%. Canadian Solar leans bifacial (46% of lineup).
Both catalogues are read from the manufacturers' own datasheets. A brand is not scored against the market here, only against the other brand on this page.
The two companies
Canadian Solar Inc. is a global renewable energy company founded in 2001. Headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario, it manufactures solar PV modules and provides battery energy storage solutions. The company also develops utility-scale solar power and battery energy storage projects.
- Founded
- 2001
- Headquarters
- Kitchener, Canada
- Annual capacity
- 51 GW/year
- Employees
- 17,113
- Listed
- NASDAQ: CSIQ
- Tier 1 bankable
- Yes
Catalogue against catalogue
An average over a catalogue describes the range a manufacturer publishes, not the module you would buy. A brand with two flagship panels and eighty older ones averages worse than one that has retired its back catalogue.
What each of them builds
Canadian Solar skews to higher efficiency: 13% of lineup is 23%+
Canadian Solar offers more 600W+ panels (24% of lineup)
Dominant cell tech: <strong>PERC</strong> (67%)
Dominant cell tech: <strong>PERC</strong> (100%)
The flagships
Written summary
Canadian Solar is a solar module manufacturer founded in 2001 by Dr. Shawn Qu in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The company has been publicly traded on NASDAQ since 2006 and has grown into one of the five largest solar panel manufacturers in the world. BloombergNEF Tier 1 data places its annual module production capacity at approximately 61 GW, and the company was named to S&P Global Commodity Insights' Premier List of Tier 1 Cleantech Companies in 2025. SolarReviews awarded it the title of top solar panel brand of 2025. Growatt, by contrast, was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Shenzhen, China. It is not primarily a solar panel manufacturer: its core business is inverters and energy storage, and it holds the position of world's leading residential inverter supplier. Canadian Solar holds a substantially stronger footprint as a bankable, institutional-grade panel manufacturer.
Canadian Solar's current panel lineup is built around the HiKu and TOPHiKu series. The TOPHiKu6 employs N-type TOPCon cell technology, while the TOPBiHiKu6 adds a bifacial design suited to commercial and utility-scale ground-mount projects. These product lines cover the full range from residential rooftops to large-scale generation assets. Growatt's relevance to a panel purchasing decision is more limited: the company's primary product families are its string inverters, hybrid inverters, and modular battery systems such as the APX HV - the last of which won a Solar Power World Top Products award in 2025. Growatt panels do appear in some markets as part of bundled system offerings, but the brand is not recognized as a panel manufacturer in the same sense as Canadian Solar.
For a buyer choosing solar panels, Canadian Solar is the direct and well-credentialed choice: Tier 1 bankability, a deep TOPCon product portfolio, and a long track record in project finance. Growatt is best evaluated on its inverter and storage merits rather than as a panel competitor - a complete installation might reasonably combine Canadian Solar modules with a Growatt hybrid inverter, as they serve different roles in the same system.
Generated by Claude Sonnet · 2026-06-11
Other brand comparisons
Shop prices: See 38 Canadian Solar offers · See 2 Growatt offers
Comparisons are computed from manufacturer datasheets held in the ComparePV database and may not reflect a brand's complete current lineup. Nothing on this page is paid placement.