Chinese solar company Longi has transformed the global solar industry by managing to produce monocrystalline solar ingots and wafers at a much lower cost than the overall industry and has almost single-handedly transformed the industry’s dominant technology. The company has been rapidly expanding capacity to take advantage of its low-cost production process and currently has more than 20 GW of solar wafer capacity and has rapidly overtaken GCL which used to be the solar wafer leader.

The company is all set to expand capacity to more than 50 GW over the next few years even as the company has reported profits of almost USD 700 million last year which is by far the highest in the industry where the smaller solar companies are still making large losses due to the low prices of solar products. Even at these low prices, Longi has been able to maintain high margins and profits.

Longi through its subsidiary Lerri Technology has also been building out solar cells and panels using the same monocrystalline technology. The company is looking to leapfrog growth in the downstream segment of the solar industry and is now in talks to buy Zhejiang Yize which is a major maker of solar cells and panels. The target company has most of its production facilities in Vietnam and uses this SE Asian factory to export solar cells and panels without duties to the western markets.

USA and Europe for long have imposed ADD and CVD on imports of Chinese and Taiwanese cells and panels. Vietnam is a convenient low-cost production base that is not subject to duties from the USA and Europe. Zhejiang Yize uses its factory to make solar panels for a variety of top tier Chinese companies such as Jinko, JA Solar, Trina and others who can ship the solar products to high duty markets without paying duties. Longi is ideally positioned with its large cash war chest to buy the company and rapidly expand its solar cell and panel capacity to further cement its place as the leader in the solar industry. The Chinese solar industry is rapidly consolidating around 4-5 very large companies that are dominant in the different parts of the supply chain such as solar cells, wafers, and polysilicon.