China’s LONGi Solar Signs $600 Million Supply Agreement In The US

Chinese solar manufacturer LONGi Solar announced last week that it signed a $600 million supply agreement with an unnamed major US power plant developer for the company’s high-efficiency monocrystalline modules.

Established in 2000, LONGi currently boasts shipments of 5.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar cells and 6.5 GW of solar modules. The company’s latest agreement is seen as “another solid step [for] LONGi Solar as a global leading monocrystalline module manufacturer.”

The information for LONGi Solar’s (also known as LONGi Green Energy Technology) latest agreement are hard to come by, as the company works primarily through its China-language website, which includes all investor announcements, leaving us only to rely on translated statements and English-as-a-second-language media releases.

The “LONGi Shares Announcement” describes a sales contract for monocrystalline components worth approximately $600 million which is expected to be fulfilled and shipped between 2019 and 2022. According to LONGi’s Announcement, “The buyer is a major ground power plant developer” but must remain unnamed “due to trade secrets” and will pay LONGi in installments.

Mark Osborne, Senior News Editor at PV-Tech, believes that this is the largest module supply contract LONGi has signed with a US project developer.

It is also worth noting that this is the first major supply contract publicly announced since the imposition of tariffs on Chinese solar products stemming from the United States’ Section 201 trade case which was concluded and imposed earlier this year. Specifically, it is the first announced supply contract that does not come from a company which has also announced plans to assemble its products in the US, thus circumventing the tariffs.

It is unclear to what extent LONGi will be subject to the tariffs given the nuances of the imposed tariffs — which allow for 2.5 GW worth of un-tariffed cells, but not modules.