Chinese PV Industry Brief: Longi continues construction of ingot fab as GCL finds a buyer for six PV farms

Longi Solar announced the construction of phase three of its silicon ingot manufacturing facility in Lijiang, Yunnan, which will have an annual capacity of 10 GW. Phase one of the Lijiang plant started initial construction in 2016 with 6 GW of monocrystalline ingot manufacturing capacity. Phase two followed in 2018. After the commissions of the two phases, Longi signed an investment contract with the local government in September for phase three, with a total investment of RMB2.5 billion, around US$388 million.

China Longyuan Power Group, a leading state-owned renewable energy enterprise and subsidiary of one of the largest national energy power groups, CHN Energy, released its 2020 annual report on Wednesday. The company achieved total revenue of RMB28.7 billion (US$4.49 billion) and a pretax profit of RMB6.9 billion (US$1.07 billion). In 2020, CLYPG signed investment agreements for PV projects with total capacity of 32.6 GW as well as for another 18.9 GW of wind power projects. The projects are located in several provinces, including Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Gansu and Qinghai. More than 2.35 GW of PV projects completed filing procedures and received approval from national authorites and are now under construction. Other projects will enter the implementation stage after completing filing procedures.

GCL New Energy, the EPC and investment unit of GCL group, announced Wednesday that it signed contracts with the Three Gorges Group, a national owned energy enterprise, for the sale of six existing PV parks. Three Gorges Group will have 100% ownership of four parks located in central China and 50% ownership of the other two plants. GCL said the deal would lower its total exterior liabilities of RMB1.3 billion (US$200 million), resulting in a 1% drop in its asset liability ratio. GCL will receive around RMB928 million (US$144 million) in cash flow from the deal.

According to PV Infolink and China Polysilicon Association’s latest report, poly-silicon prices are strong and continue to rise. The best mono-crystalline silicon price quoted this week reached RMB131.8 (US$20.4) per kilo, 3.53% higher than last week. However, the prices for PV glass collapsed. For 2mm-thick coating glass, the latest price reached RMB22 per square meter, compared to RMB32.5 last week — a drop of 32.3%. Coating glass measuring 3.2mm in thickness dropped 30% to RMB28 per square meter from RMB40 last week. One business insider attributed the price drop to a reduction in production among PV panel manufacturers, which lead to a decline in orders and a rise in inventory among PV glass suppliers. The reduction in production among panel makers has resulted from rises in upstream costs and higher prices for related components.