Bifacial Shipments for Longi Solar Cross 10 GW Milestone

China’s Longi Solar, a national champion that has long sought global heft too, has informed that its high-efficiency bifacial modules have now crossed 10GW in shipments. The firm hopes to take production to 12GW by the end of 2020.

Bifacial modules have been around for a whole now, and in some markets like India, still shaking off the earlier image of being premium modules, to be used only in very specific circumstances. But as we have seen in some recent orders from India too they have effectively been pat of the mainstream solar panel technology now for some time. Thanks to their low LID (Light Induced  Degradation) and high efficiency,  the modern modules have made solid strides.

Longi has been among the earliest firms to be pushing these since 2017, with its Hi-MO2 bifacial module back then. In 2018, with half-cut technology and bifacial cells, Hi-MO 3 was launched and 2019 saw the widespread adoption of bifacial modules, with the 166mm Hi-MO 4 (high voltage) module. As the era of grid parity approaches, the all new Hi-MO 5 bifacial module has been launched this year for delivery to investors in utility-scale PV plants around the world.

According to Longi, some of the bigger projects where its bifacials have been installed are a 390MW project in Aswan, Egypt to a 224MW plant in Georgia, USA.

The gap between the higher cost of a Bifacial is fast narrowing, with the higher profitability it delivers in terms of lower LCOE.

The Hi-MO 5 module (M10 standard wafer) is Longi’s flagship bifacial offering now, designed for ultra-large power stations, with a maximum power of 540W and a claimed efficiency of 21.1%.

Along with the push on Bifacials, top manufacturers from Longi to Jinko have almost stopped manufacturing polycrystalline modules, something that was the default choice in India for any developers until last year. Expect the Indian market to play catch up on bifacials as solar hybrid projects, as well as projects in areas like the Ladakh region, that offer ideal conditions for Bifacials, move ahead.

Read: The technical evolution behind the 10GW shipment milestone of LONGi bifacial modules