Longi - solar panels

LONGi: the world's largest manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon wafers

History and development path

LONGi's story began on 14 February 2000 in the city of Xi'an, when engineer Li Zhenguo, together with university classmates specialising in semiconductor materials and metallurgy — including Zhong Baoshen — founded Xi'an LONGi Silicon Materials Corporation. At a time when the vast majority of solar panel makers were betting on cheaper polycrystalline silicon, LONGi's founders chose the opposite path: focusing on monocrystalline silicon, a material that's harder to manufacture but capable of delivering significantly higher cell efficiency. What looked like a risky bet at the time went on to set the direction for the entire industry — monocrystalline panels now dominate the global market, and LONGi is the world's largest manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon wafers.

In February 2017, following the acquisition of manufacturer LERRI Solar, the company renamed itself LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., dropping the Xi'an reference and signalling a broader manufacturing scope spanning silicon ingots and wafers through to finished PV modules and solar power plants. The company's shares trade on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and industry analysts estimated that as of 2022 LONGi controlled more than 30% of the global market for solar-grade silicon wafers, shipping 37.5 gigawatts of finished modules — a figure that speaks to the company's true industrial scale.

The brand's roots in the semiconductor industry, rather than purely "solar" manufacturing, aren't a footnote — they're a practical advantage for the buyer. Producing a high-quality silicon wafer demands a culture of material-purity control measured in microns, a standard closer to electronics manufacturing than to mass-produced construction materials. LONGi has carried that quality culture through its entire panel production chain, from silicon purification to final testing of the finished module before shipment.

Products and their purpose

Our catalogue features high-power monocrystalline LONGi modules, including bifacial (double-sided) panels capable of generating electricity from both the front and rear surface using light reflected off a roof or light-coloured ground beneath the array. In practice this adds extra percentage points of output without increasing the plant's footprint — a meaningful benefit when roof or plot space is limited or awkwardly shaped. The panels perform reliably under partial shading, feature a mechanically robust frame, and withstand the kind of snow loads typical of a Ukrainian winter.

Advantages for the buyer

For a homeowner, LONGi panels mean predictable savings on electricity bills and the option to earn through a green tariff or by selling surplus energy under a net-billing scheme. For the owner of an industrial or farm-scale plant, they mean predictable payback thanks to a slow power degradation curve documented by the manufacturer over a quarter-century of operation, plus broad compatibility with inverters from the various manufacturers in our range — letting you assemble a complete solar system without hunting elsewhere for compatible parts.

The scale of the company's own research investment is worth noting too: LONGi's annual R&D spending runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, backed by a development team numbering in the thousands of engineers. It's precisely this model — an in-house raw-material base, proprietary wafer-slicing patents, and dedicated research centres — that lets the brand bring new generations of panels to market faster than competitors who buy in finished components from third-party suppliers and depend on someone else's pace of innovation.

LONGi's warranty commitments are clearly spelled out in the documentation accompanying every batch: one clause guarantees the panel's rated output over its long-term service life, a separate one covers manufacturing defects in the frame, junction box and glass. Products are certified to international quality standards and every batch undergoes spot-testing before dispatch, ensuring the panel's real-world characteristics match what's stated in the technical datasheet.

Why choose LONGi

If it matters to you that the heart of your solar plant is built on technology developed by engineers with a semiconductor-grade, rather than purely construction-grade, approach to material quality, LONGi modules deserve a first look. Our consultants will help you choose the optimal configuration for your roof and budget, and delivery will get the chosen equipment to you promptly anywhere in Ukraine.