LONGi which is one of the world’s leading solar manufacturer that specializes in mono panels, has announced that they will be expanding its solar cell and module factory in India’s Andhra Pradesh region to meet the country’s rapidly-rising demand for solar energy and to increase LONGi’s overseas sales.
LONGi will invest $309 million, including about $240 million in construction investment and $68 million in working capital, to double the capacity of its cell and module factory in Andhra Pradesh from 500MW to 1GW respectively to keep up with this huge growing market demand.
LONGi will double the cell production!
This will be the very first Chinese company to set up a solar equipment manufacturing facility in India, according to a company statement. “This investment is to generate annual revenues of RMB2.42bn and annual net profit of RMB120mn. The projects will help LONGi to tap into overseas market further and improve its overseas sales as well as global mono market share,” the emailed statement said.
India is running the world’s largest clean energy programme with an ambitious target of putting in place 175GW of clean energy capacity by 2022. Of this, 100GW is to come from solar projects. Read up on how they are closing dirty coal plants here to create a new cleaner India.
Monocrystalline silicon is more efficient and expensive as compared to multicrystalline silicon, widely used globally in setting up solar power projects. It also improves the average efficiency of a solar panel, resulting in better capacity utilization factor (CUF) of a solar project.
The world’s largest monocrystalline solar wafer maker’s India plans come in the backdrop of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government conducting an anti-dumping investigation on solar equipment from China, Taiwan and Malaysia. Additionally, India is exploring to levy a 70% provisional safeguard duty on imported solar panels and modules from China and Malaysia, as recommended by the directorate general of safeguards. A final government decision is awaited.
