Q. Can you briefly explain the LONGi Solar?
Founded in 2000, LONGi aspires to be the most compelling solar technology company by leading the world’s transition to green energy. Being committed to the mission of making the best of solar energy to build a green world and the brand image of the most trusted, reliable solar company that blazes the trail for green technology, LONGi focuses on technological innovation and endeavors to build its business in five areas—monocrystalline wafers, cells and modules, distributed generation solar solutions, power station solutions, and hydrogen energy systems. It has grown into a Green Electricity + Green Hydrogen product and solution provider that supports the global zero carbon drive. Its business has expanded to over 150 countries and regions worldwide, with manufacturing bases in such countries as China, Vietnam, Malaysia and branches in the US, Japan, Germany, India, Australia, the UAE, Thailand, etc. As an advocate of the RE100, EP100, and EV100 initiatives, LONGi sets its own SBTi targets to further its green, sustainable development efforts, and to advance the global energy reform, contributing its share to a Zero Carbon Planet and a Green Earth.
Q. What are the core objectives of your company?
We are committed to becoming a role model in providing sustainable solar technology service and enabling greater returns for our customers’ investments. We are committed to promoting the ecological restoration of the Earth and creating a green planet for future generations.
Q. Can you please tell us about the products you’re using in PV modules and Hydrogen?
For PV modules, LONGi released the new highpower module Hi-MO 7 based on HPDC technology this year, and formed a product portfolio of “Hi-MO 5+Hi-MO 7” applied in the large-scale utility power plant market and Hi-MO X6 product focused on the distributed market, achieving differentiated product development. Hi-MO 7 comes in standard M10 72c size, delivering power output up to 590W of the LR5-72HGD (2278mm*1134mm version) and up to 620W of the LR7-72HGD (2382mm*1134mm version), with the max module efficiencies of 22.8% and 23.0% for each, and a higher bifaciality of around 80%. Hi-MO 7 excels in power generation, reliability, bifaciality and power temperature coefficient, which make it ideal for use in challenging environments with limited land area, high albedo, and elevated temperatures. Hi-MO X6 module, designed for distributed scenarios, adopts advanced HPBC cell technology and is committed to delivering a superior experience for distributed customers. Built upon high-efficiency HPBC cell technology, featuring a frontal busbarfree design, the product’s design maximizes the utilization of incident light, reduces optical losses, enhances conversion efficiency and consequently optimizes LCOE. The standard version of the HPBC cell has achieved an efficiency breakthrough of 25.5%, while HPBC+ cell efficiency exceeds 25.8%. Equipped with this cutting-edge technology, HiMO X6 shows a 6%-10% improvement in power generation performance compared to traditional modules. With a maximum module efficiency of 23.3%, the product sets a new value benchmark for the global distributed market. For Hydrogen equipment, LONGi ALK Hi1 series was globally launched in February 2023 and offers significant advantages in terms of high energy efficiency, high reliability, and a high rate of return. LONGi Hydrogen continues to explore LCOH, with an industry-leading energy consumption as low as 4.0 kWh/Nm3. On September 12th, LONGi Hydrogen unveiled the ALK G series product, with hydrogen production capacities of 1200Nm³/h, 1500Nm³/h, 2000Nm³/h, the ALK G series product firmly leads in large electrolysis technology. This ultimately results in a roughly 20% reduction in CAPEX when calculated on a per-unit basis. The newly-released product is adaptable to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind worldwide, allowing for greater gas production at lower energy consumption and higher stability.
Q. Would you describe the technologies, like innovations and insights, being used by your company?
The current technological route reserve of photovoltaic solar cells is abundant, and a stepped iteration route has been formed, and future costs will be further reduced. The mainstream technology directions after PERC include TOPCon, HJT, BC cells, etc. Although TOPCon cells are in the stage of mass production and large-scale expansion, the industry generally believes that their transitional properties are strong, and back contact technology batteries are highly sought after as future technologies. From 2012 to the first half of 2023, LONGi has invested over CNY 20 billion in research and development, which is the highest in the industry. In this year, with authoritative certification from the European solar testing agency ESTI, LONGi achieved a conversion efficiency of 33.5% for crystalline silicon perovskite tandem solar cells on commercial CZ wafers, once again leading the industry. Following the principle of “mass production, development, and exploration”, The HPDC and HPBC are the mainstream technologies LONGi adopted in its PV modules. HPDC (High Performance and Hybrid Passivated Dual-Junction Cell) is the updated product of HPC, which is featured by bifacial and dual-junction cell structure. The front and back of the cell adopt different passivation technologies, which can more effectively reduce the recombination of carriers and improve the power generation capacity. In the front side of cell, low resistance contact layer is introduced to form better ohmic contact. High and low junctions are applied on the back side of cell, and process parameters are optimized to achieve full-area passivation on the back and further reduce surface recombination. Therefore, the cell has higher Voc and conversion efficiency, lower degradation characteristics, and better temperature coefficient. HPBC (Hybrid Passivated Back Contact) is LONGi’s self-developed and named composite passivated back contact cell technology, is one of BC cell technology. With gridline-free design of the front side of the cellas its core feature, HPBCis based on the BC technology platform, combined with LONGi’s self-developed and innovative composite passivation technology, optimizing and upgrading the cell’s light absorption, photoelectricity conversion, and current transmissioncapabilities, and ultimately significantly improving the conversion efficiency of the cell. LONGi stated that the company’s multiple highefficiency solar cell technologies and products are already in the development, reserve, and pilot stages, and is accelerating the commercialization and mass production of high-efficiency technology research and development results at low cost.
Q. How useful and satisfactory are the services provided by your company?
Over the past decade, LONGi had transformed the photovoltaic sector with its monocrystalline silicon technology, which significantly reduced global solar power generation costs by more than 90%, turning photovoltaics from an expensive emerging renewable energy to one of the cheapest and most affordable sources of electricity. LONGi has been the leading global manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon wafers for 9 consecutive years. In addition, LONGi has achieved the highest global market share and module shipment in 2020, 2021, and 2022. And planned to increase the wafer capacity to 190GW and module capacity to 130GW by the end of 2023. From 2012 to 2022, LONGi has produced 290 GW of photovoltaic products, resulting in a cumulative clean energy output of over 1.15 million GWh. Based on the average emission factor of the global power grid estimated by the IEA, this is equivalent to avoiding 536 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, accounting for 1.46% of the total global energy-related carbon emissions in 2022.
Q. What are your company’s future prospects and outlook?
Upholding its core values of “Reliability, Valueadd, Fulfillment”, LONGi will promote the Green Power + Green Hydrogen solutions throughout the world, benefiting more people with green energy, and advancing the green, low-carbon energy transformation. LONGi advocates international cooperation and global energy equity, and opposes all forms of politicized clean energy. It promotes the construction of a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system and the diversification of energy varieties and energy sources. As a leader in the photovoltaic industry, LONGi firmly believes that solar energy has become the world’s most economical energy source and the most powerful weapon against climate change. Benefiting from the technological progress of the entire photovoltaic industry, the cost of photovoltaic power generation will continue to fall, and it will become a green energy source that is affordable to everyone.
Q. What are the challenges your company has faced while growing up?
Nowadays, the international trade environment is undergoing changes, with more localized supply chains and more complex trade barriers to China’s photovoltaic industry, resulting in uncertainty for imported photovoltaic products in international photovoltaic markets such as the United States, Europe, and India. The uncertainty in the overseas market has triggered the industry to enter an “elimination race”, with some integrated enterprises and second tier brands competing to gain customers and win orders. In the face of the current industrial cycle and future market uncertainty, during the reporting period, LONGi continued to promote efficient and stable operations to prevent operational risks. As of the end of June 2023, the company’s asset liability ratio was 55.99%. Compared to the industry’s asset liability ratio of 70% or even higher, LONGi has maintained good debt paying ability, and the number of inventory turnover days has decreased by 13 days compared to the first half of 2022. The product competitiveness continues to strengthen. As a technology and capital intensive industry, photovoltaic has a stronger demand for rapid transformation of technological achievements and equipment updates. With the further opening up of domestic and international financing channels, enterprises in new energy, semiconductor and other tracks have also joined the market, seizing market opportunities with the advantage of the industrial chain. Recently, PV-Tech released the PV ModuleTech bankability report for the second quarter 2023, and LONGi once again received the highest AAA ranking. This is the 14th consecutive quarter for the company to achieve this ranking, underlining its outstanding performance in terms of high-quality products and services, combined with financial strength and stability.
Q. What message do you want to convey to your customers?
LONGi upheld its core values of being “Reliability, Value-add, Fulfillment” and worked with all suppliers to provide reliable and efficient products and services to global customers. LONGi stressed the quality assurance and improved the quality management system, covering pre-sale, in-sale, and after-sale and its after-sale service system won a five-star rating in 2022. In the era of carbon neutrality, LONGi has seized the trend of the times and is striding forward by leveraging clean energy. Given the massive market scale, we are ready to collaborate with more partners and promote a just global energy transition and sustainable development based on common principles and values to ensure a livable and sustainable future for all.