Achieving a 43% increase in product quality and reliability, a reduction of 84% in product production and delivery cycle, and a 20% decrease in overall energy consumption per unit at the base—this is the result achieved by the construction of the LONGi Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory. The LONGi Jiaxing Production Base is also the first Lighthouse Factory in the global PV industry, implementing more than 30 digital use cases, becoming a model of high-quality development and creating a new quality of productive forces in the PV industry.
On May 23, 2024, at the media open day event of LONGi Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory with the theme of “Apex of Technology, LONGi Intelligent Manufacturing”, LONGi’s Vice President Zhang Haimeng introduced the two main driving factors for LONGi to build the Lighthouse Factory: one is to meet the ever-changing and diverse requirements of customers, and the other is to ensure the consistency of the production process in different production bases.
It is well known that the core of the development of PV technology has always revolved around improving efficiency and reducing the cost per kilowatt-hour. LONGi has always attached great importance to technology research and development, driving productivity with technology, continuously improving conversion efficiency, and also approaching the theoretical limit of conversion efficiency. The back contact crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cell (HBC) independently developed by LONGi has achieved a conversion efficiency of 27.30%, setting a new world record for the efficiency of single crystal silicon solar cells; the independently developed crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell efficiency has set a world record of 33.9%.
However, the global PV industry has entered an era more oriented towards customer needs. With the development of the PV industry, customer needs have become diversified. PV companies, including LONGi, have begun to realize a problem: how to produce modules to meet the real requirements of customers.
LONGi, which takes customers as the center, began to realize that in the large-scale manufacturing process of PVs, not only should the conversion efficiency be improved from the R&D end, but also higher efficiency should be ensured in the manufacturing process to meet the ever-changing and diverse requirements of customers, flexible production of components suitable for different application scenarios, and faster delivery of products to customers. Traditional assembly line production is obviously not up to these requirements.
In addition, as the scale of module production expands, more and more module production bases are scattered around the world, closer to the end market. How to ensure the consistency of the module production process, ensure that the delivery requirements of the module products are met, and meet the local compliance and product certification requirements, is another issue faced by PV companies.
Driven by these two factors, LONGi has embarked on the path to build a Lighthouse Factory, adopting new technologies such as industrial Internet of Things (iIoT), big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins on a large scale to promote intelligent manufacturing. On December 14, 2023, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced the latest batch of “Lighthouse Factory” list, and LONGi Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory was selected, becoming the only factory in the global PV industry to be included.
“In this process, what everyone sees is not only the certification of the factory itself, but also the ability to provide services to customers, as well as the improvement of product quality, efficiency, and performance on top of the product, forming a structured capability.” Zhang Haimeng said, “This capability can be delivered as value to our customers and partners, which is the most gratifying point for us in the process of building a Lighthouse Factory.”
It is understood that LONGi’s newly launched Hi-MO X6 Max module series will be officially put into production at the base in the near future. The Hi-MO X6 Max series module products, based on the core value of Hi-MO X6, have carried the brand new TaiRay silicon wafer technology, and maintained the excellent genes of HPBC cells, with the “golden size” M11 rectangular silicon wafer and the leading industry standard 2382×1134mm module size, achieving a new breakthrough in product stability, reliability, and power generation efficiency. “Use the most advanced production technology to achieve the highest level of technical products and create higher value for customers.”
Before that, based on BC (Back-Contact) technology, LONGi released multiple scenario-based new module products such as Hi-MO X6 (Anti-Dust Design) module, Hi-MO X6 double glass (Anti Humidity & Heat Design) module, Hi-MO 9, and their core purpose is to meet the customized needs in the market through differentiated innovation.
All of this is inseparable from the production strength and self-confidence brought by LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing. It is precisely with the strong support of LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing that “customer-centric” has been truly implemented.
Of course, the changes brought by the Lighthouse Factory to LONGi are far from over. For employees, the Lighthouse Factory has improved their working environment, enabled them to master the application of digital tools, improved their work skills, and achieved higher quality employment. Zhang Haimeng said: “This is also the greatest benefit of the Lighthouse Factory.”
On the day of the event, LONGi also officially announced the launch of the “Lighthouse Project”, which will continue to rapidly expand the agile intelligent manufacturing model of LONGi Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory horizontally, and promote it to more production and manufacturing bases. Zhang Haimeng said: “LONGi Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory is just a starting point, we hope to build it into a high-level factory that can be replicated in the future.”
