Longi plans to increase electrolyser output to 5-10GW next year as it eyes global green hydrogen market

Longi plans to increase its electrolyser manufacturing capacity to between 5GW and 10GW by the end of next year, with an eye to expanding its sales beyond the domestic Chinese market, a senior company official told an event in Dubai today.

“We have two factories today, one in Wuxi and the other in Xi’an, both together represent 2.5GW capacity,” said Hatem Azaiez, Longi’s sales director for the Middle East and Africa, during a presentation to the Connecting Green Hydrogen MENA conference.

“If you get a chance to visit the factories, you notice that actually they are built to be much bigger than 1[GW] and 1.5[GW], so they are ready to go to 5GW very quickly.”

However, he added that the company more widely targets “between 5GW and 10GW” of electrolyser manufacturing capacity by the end of 2025.

At present, most of Longi’s 300MW of electrolysers that have been manufactured to date have gone towards the domestic Chinese market.

“Today, we are leading in China in terms of market share — 30% market share in 2023,” Azaiez explained.

However, as the salesman’s presence at a conference in Dubai would imply, Longi is already eyeing international markets. The firm has already sold 20MW of its pressurised alkaline electrolysers to Saudi developer ACWA Power for a project in Uzbekistan.

“Our strategy is definitely to have 25% of our global facilities that will be outside of China,” Azaiez said, although it is unclear whether a quarter of the firm’s future electrolyser manufacturing capacity will also be built outside the country or if this figure mainly relates to its solar business (it is one of the world's largest solar panel manufacturers).

So what does Longi think it can bring to the market?

First, efficiency. The company’s current range of pressurised alkaline electrolysers consume 4.3kWh of renewable electricity per normal cubic metre of hydrogen, or around 47.8kWh per kilogram.

Second, Longi is developing larger electrolysers, with up to 15MW of nameplate capacity compared to its standard 5MW product, which the company claims will result in lower per-MW capex as developers will have to install fewer units.

“There are already two [15MW] electrolysers shipped today, and then we will have the results… as they go operational,” said Azaiez, adding that field data over “a couple years of operation” would be needed before the equipment can be launched into the market.

However, Longi estimates that doubling the production capacity for each 5MW electrolyser, and therefore halving the number of units installed, would save 20% on equipment costs and 30% on civil works costs.

Third, like other electrolyser manufacturers such as US-headquartered Electric Hydrogen, Longi is starting to sell a pre-fabricated, modular green hydrogen plant, in its case a “4-to-1” (four electrolysers with associated balance of plant) model to further drive down costs.

Longi estimates 30% lower capex and 20% less space required for the pre-fabricated product, of which 16 have already been installed, although it is unclear how these cost savings stack with other savings from larger electrolyser size and greater efficiency.

The electrolyser manufacturer also offers in-house digital modelling for the levelised cost of hydrogen from different configurations of electrolysers, upstream renewables and battery storage.

However, while the electrolyser manufacturer also claims on its product sheets an operational lifetime of more than 200,000 hours, or nearly 23 years, questions were raised as to whether performance degrades over time, as well as the reliability of the equipment.

Longi last year was one of the three electrolyser manufacturers, along with Cockerill Jingli and Peric, that had seen equipment failures at China’s flagship 260MW Kuqa project.

All three companies’ electrolysers were unable to operate safely at the advertised minimum 30% of nameplate capacity, with research house BloombergNEF arguing that the real working range could be closer to 50-100%.

However, Azaiez said that China is also one of the few countries with decades of electrolyser operation, meaning real-world data can be used to estimate degradation, which he described as “surprisingly good for [pressurised] alkaline”.

“We are also trying to give commitment to the developers, and to also have skin in the game with them, because we do believe in our numbers, that come not only from Longi but also from expertise gained in Chinese market,” he added.

However, while Azaiez noted that Longi would be willing to model performance degradation over time, based on project parameters, for its clients, he added: “You will never be able to commit to hydrogen over ten years of production as an OEM, it cannot happen.

“However we could explore ways to really have skin in the game and give more comfort to the project developer, to the lender — that we are realistic, that we are proving it.”