LONGi Green Energy Technology

LONGi Green Energy Technology, formerly Xi'an Longi Silicon Materials Corporation, is a major Chinese manufacturers of photovoltaics and a developer of solar projects. Longi is the world largest manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon wafers and is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

LONGi Green Energy Technology, formerly X'ian Longi Silicon Materials
IndustryPhotovoltaics
FoundedFebruary 14, 2000
HeadquartersXi'an, Shaanxi, China
Key people
Dr. Li Hua, VP of R&D,
LONGi Solar;
Li Wenxue, President,
LONGi Solar
Websiteen.longi-silicon.com

History

The company was founded February 14, 2000 as Xi'an LONGi Silicon Materials Corporation, with its corporate headquarters in Xian, China. It changed its name in February 2017 to LONGi Green Energy Technology Co Ltd. to better reflect its wider manufacturing scope after its acquisition of LERRI. It also dropped the Xi'an location as part of the name.[1]

Subsidiaries and acquisitions
  • LERRI Solar Technology Co., Ltd., (a.k.a. LERRI Photovoltaic Technology, also LERRI Solar), was acquired by LONGi.[2]
  • LONGi Solar

Operations

LONGI Silicon Materials is engaged in the research, manufacture and distribution of monocrystalline ingots. It is the world's largest silicon single crystal manufacturer. It has rapidly broken world solar efficiency records three times within five months.[3] Fast Company listed Xi'an LONGi Silicon Materials one among "Most Innovative Companies 2013" "For supplying the solar industry with high-quality silicon wafers at low cost."[4] LONGi Solar, a subsidiary of LONGI Green Energy Technology, recently achieved a new industry record with 23.6% conversion efficiency with its P-type monocrystalline PERC (passivated emitter rear cell) solar cells, toward which an increasing number of manufacturers worldwide are migrating.[5][6] The technique involves taking a silicon wafer, typically 1 to 2 mm thick, and making a multitude of parallel, transverse slices across the wafer, creating a large number of slivers that have a thickness of 50 micrometres and a width equal to the thickness of the original wafer. These slices are rotated 90 degrees, so that the surfaces corresponding to the faces of the original wafer become the edges of the slivers. The result is to convert, for example, a 150 mm diameter, 2 mm-thick wafer having an exposed silicon surface area of about 175 cm2 per side into about 1000 slivers having dimensions of 100 mm × 2 mm × 0.1 mm, yielding a total exposed silicon surface area of about 2000 cm2 per side. The electrical doping and contacts that had been on the face of the wafer are now located at the edges of the sliver, rather than at the front and rear as in the case of conventional wafer cells, as a result of this rotation. This results in making the cell sensitive on both sides, from both the front and rear of the cell (a property known as bifaciality).[7] Such results need to be certified by a reliable and trusted external agency, and this accomplishment has been analyzed and certified by China's National Center of Supervision and Inspection on Solar Photovoltaic Product Quality (CPVT).

LONGi claimed in October 2017 that they had achieved the record for a monocrystalline solar cell with a conversion efficiency (23.6%) higher than previously thought possible for a PERC cell. In early 2018 they announced a new efficiency record of 23.6%.

In December 2017, LONGi reported a record bifaciality reading of 82.15% for its ‘Hi-MO2’ mono PERC bifacial module. The company's strategic plan is to triple to 45GW by 2020 its capacity to produce monocrystalline ingots and wafers.

Longi Silicon is a member of the Silicon Module Super League (SMSL), which had been a group of big-six c-Si module suppliers in the solar PV industry today until Longi was admitted.[8] The other six members of the SMSL group are Canadian Solar, Hanwha Q CELLS, JA Solar, Jinko Solar, Trina Solar, and GCL.

Longi Silicon has been listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (security code: 601012) since April 2012.[9]

LONGi has been called the fastest growing PV manufacturer in the industry. LONGi annual revenue in 2013 was derived entirely from selling around US$330 million of mono c-Si wafers, but by 2016 that annual revenue had skyrocketed to approximately US$1.67 billion. That was a nearly 94% increase over the 2015 fiscal year, which had itself generated a revenue growth of around 61% over the year before.[10]

LONGi has plants in China,[11] India,[12][13] and Malaysia, and has acquired production facilities from other companies, including from US manufacturer SunEdison.[14] See SunEdison. However, Photon.Info reports that Longi Green Energy is mulling an open manufactory in the USA.[15][16] Further, in a lengthy article in PV Magazine Longi Silicon and Zhonghuan Semiconductor announce their shared plans for over 10GW of new expansion of additional capacity increases for their mono-crystalline products.

In March 2018, LONGi announced an agreement to develop a major solar manufacturing hub in Saudi Arabia to support the Kingdom's plans to install 200GW of solar power plants in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Their ‘Solar-for-Solar” strategy for this development is historic in that it avoids the long smokestack criticism by "building the manufacturing plants that would be powered entirely by solar energy to provide the lowest manufacturing carbon footprint."[17]

Products
  • P/N-type Mono-crystalline silicon wafer
  • P/N-type Mono-crystalline ingots
  • Bifacial solar cells

References
  1. Osborne, M. LONGi changes name. PVTech. Feb 23, 2017 12:38 PM GMT. Accessed February 28, 2018.
  2. LERRI home page, default language is Mandarin Chinese; English available
  3. Longi Green brings mono c-Si PERC cell record to 23.6%. Renewables Now. February 28, 2018. Accessed February 28, 2018.
  4. Most Innovative Companies 2013. Fast Company.
  5. Kenning, T. LONGi hits record 23.6% conversion efficiency for mono PERC solar cells. PVTech, Feb 28, 2018 4:44 AM GMT. Accessed 2/28/2018.
  6. Longi Green brings mono c-Si PERC cell record to 23.6%. Renewables Now. February 28, 2018. Accessed February 28, 2018.
  7. "Sliver Technology Research at the Australian National University".
  8. http://www.pv-tech.org/editors-blog/silicon-module-super-league-big-six-to-reach-50-global-market-share-in-2016
  9. Bloomberg
  10. Osborne, M. LONGi is the fastest growing PV manufacturer in the industry. PV-Tech. In Editors' Blog, Manufacturing, Fab & Facilities, Materials, Cell Processing, Modules, Markets & Finance, Companies, Financial & Legal. Apr 01, 2017 2:29 PM BST. Accessed 2/23/2018.
  11. Xi'an Longi to invest $126m in 100MW China PV plan. Publicover, B. ReCharge. 30 September 2015. Updated 28 September 2016. Accessed February 28, 2010.
  12. Xi'an Longi to invest $126m in 100MW China PV plan. Publicover, B. ReCharge. 30 September 2015. Updated 28 September 2016. Accessed February 28, 2010.
  13. Deals and company news from the global solar sector this week. Recharge: Solar Power Deals & Company News. 21 September 2015. Updated 28 September 2015. Accessed February 28, 2018.
  14. SunEdison sells Malaysia factory, closes Texas poly-plant. Lee, A. RechargeNews. 18 February 2016. Updated 28 September 2016. Accessed February 28, 2018.
  15. Photon.Info. 18/11/2017 - 20:52.
  16. Eckhouse, B. Chinese Solar Maker Longi Mulling U.S. Plant as Tariffs Loom. November 15, 2017, 4:37 PM EST Updated on November 16, 2017, 12:01 AM EST. Accessed February 28, 2018
  17. Osborne, M. LONGi set for agreement to develop major solar manufacturing hub in Saudi Arabia. May 25, 2018. PV Tech, accessed 5/29/2018
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