KUCHING: LONGi (Kuching) Sdn Bhd will raise its annual solar cell production capacity to more than eight gigawatt (GW) when its RM600mil new Cell 4 plant in Samajaya Free Industrial Park here is commissioned early this year.

       Chief executive officer Ngieng Sii Jing said Cell 4 is expected to commence production in March and to be fully ramped up by August 2022.

       “Cell 4 has a production capacity of 3.3GW a year.

       “Together with the existing three plants, this will bring our solar cell production capacity to more than 8GW per annum, making LONGi the largest solar cell producer in Malaysia,” he told StarBiz.

       LONGi is the world’s largest manufacturer of solar-grade mono-crystalline silicion products. Kuching is China-based LONGi Green Energy Technology Corp’s first overseas operation.

       Ngieng said Cell 4 will produce bigger-size solar cells or M10 (182mm x 182mm) as compared to M6 (166mm x 166mm) cells the company is producing currently.

       For Cell 3, the company is expected to upgrade its cells production to M10 from M6 by March 2022.

       He said the solar cells produced by LONGi Kuching are sold entirely to LONGi Vietnam solar module plant that converts solar cells into solar panels for exports solely to the United States.

       “The demand for solar panels in the United States is very strong because of its decarbonisation policy.

       “As our current solar cells production is not sufficient to meet the demand, we might have to buy the shortfall from other producers.

       “But we are going all out to increase our production capacity,” he added.

       Ngieng said LONGi Kuching has applied to Sarawak Energy Bhd for additional electricity supply to power up its proposed Cell 5 plant project in year 2023.

       If built, Cell 5 facility will require an additional 30MVA.

       When Cell 4 plant is operational, LONGi Kuching’s power consumption will increase to about 80 megawatt.

       The company is recruiting another 1,200 workers to man the operations of Cell 4. Currently, it has a workforce of about 3,000, about 99.9% of whom are locals.

       LONGi Kuching is an integrated solar plant and it is the first in the world to have a full supply chain for mono-crystalline silicon products in one single location.

       The company also owns a silicon ingot plant, a wafer plant and a module plant.

       The ingots produced are supplied to the wafer plant while the produced wafers supplied to the cells plants for mounting photovolatic (PV) effects onto the wafers.

       Finally, the processed cells are transferred to the module plant to be assembled into solar panels.

       LONGi spread its wing to Sarawak five years ago via several acquisitions, including taking over US-based SunEdison’s silicon wafer production facility.

       It also acquired the solar manufacturing plant owned by Comtec Solar International (M) Sdn Bhd and the former factory of Sanmina-SCI Corp (M) Sdn Bhd, which was involved in the production of printed circuit boards. LONGi then converted the old factory for solar cells production.

       On raw materials like polysilicon, glass panel and chemicals required for the manufacturing of solar panels, Ngieng said the prices have surged by an average of 70% since the Covid-19 outbreak because of supply shortage.

       While LONGi Kuching sources most of its raw materials from China, it has significantly increased the purchase from local suppliers which it helped to develop.

       “If not because of the movement control order (MCO), we can hit the RM300mil mark in local purchases in 2021 from merely several million ringgit a year previously,” he said.

       According to Ngieng, LONGi Kuching’s production activities were affected during the MCO as more than 1,000 of its employees were under quarantine in their respective areas even though the company’s plants operated as usual.

       “We are now back to full operations again,” he added.

       Ngieng said LONGi Kuching is expected to maintain its total sales of more than RM2bil in 2021 and with marginal increase in 2022.

       Global demand for solar panels has seen exponential growth in the last decade, with worldwide PV module production capacity additions grew from 52GW in 2011 to 320GW in 2020.

       He said the solar industry is expected to grow at an estimated 10% and 20% per annum in the next three years, with global installation forecast to hit 200GW in 2022 from an estimated 160GW in 2021.

       “The biggest growth is recorded in China and India, followed by the United States and European countries,” he added.