Longi Becomes The New 800 lb Gorilla Of The Global Solar Market

Longi Has A Huge Lead In Technology And Profits

Long Silicon Materials along with its subsidiary Lerri Solar has become the world’s most profitable solar panel maker overtaking established companies such as Trina, Jinko and Canadian solar. The company which started out mainly as a maker of low-cost, monocrystalline wafer and ingot producer has subsequently expanded into cell and module manufacturing. It now plans to further vertically integrate into polysilicon production. With gross margins in excess of 25%, the company has become highly profitable and will keep expanding at an exponential pace going forward.

The company has already revealed plans to expand its monocrystalline wafer capacity from the current 7.5 GW to an incredible 25 GW. Its mono wafers are getting huge traction in the industry, with many leading solar cell producers such as Neo Solar Power and Solarworld shifting entirely to monocrystalline silicon technology. The company has pioneered low priced p-type mono wafers which has upended the existing technology order. These wafers produce cells with a much more competitive LCOE as compared to the normal multicrystalline wafers that most people use. Its efforts have also been boosted by the Chinese government giving higher preference to higher efficiency PV technology.

Polysilicon

Longi has shown incredible growth with the highest profitability

Longi Green Energy Technology which is the new name of the company saw its revenues climb by 100% and its profits climb by almost 200%. Even its module shipments showed an incredible increase to more than 2.3 GW which makes it one of the biggest solar panel shippers. Not content with its performance, the company is planning huge expansion as it has a solid technology lead in the mono silicon technology.

Future Expansion

Longi is planning to expand at all parts of the supply chain:

i) Polysilicon – It plans to set up a 50000 ton plant in JV with Tongwei. The first phase of 25000 tons will be running by late 2018 and will produce high quality polysilicon which is required for mono wafers

ii) Wafers – The company will probably reach around 17.5 GW by the end of 2018 as its plan to set up 10 GW this year. It has already announced a 5 GW wafer plant in JV with Trina and Tongwei

iii) Cells – The company plans to expand capacity from 2.5 GW to 5 GW by the end of 2017

iv) Modules – The company wants to expands its 5 GW module capacity to 6.5 GW

Also, read Longi Silicon Challenges GCL as a dominant supplier of solar wafer

Longi has become the most successful solar company in 2016 and based on its expansion plan the future seems quite bright. The other gorilla GCL is also looking to expand but at a much slower pace. Also its diamond wafer and black silicon technology still needs to prove itself as a worth competitor to Longi’s mono technology.