LONGi Green Energy's energy storage business "though delayed, but arrives" plans not to produce battery cells and will focus mainly on overseas markets

Cailian Press April 3 (Reporter: Liu Mengran) At the bottom of the photovoltaic (PV) industry cycle, the battle for energy storage positioning by integrated leading companies has entered a white-hot stage. Longi Green Energy (601012.SH), once seen as a “latecomer,” is accelerating to fill in the energy storage strategic puzzle with an almost urgent pace. At the 14th International Energy Storage Summit and Exhibition held recently, the company officially released its “Full-Stack LONGi ONE” PV-plus-storage integration strategy.

Cailian Press reporters noted that this is Longi’s first time participating in an industry exhibition centered on energy storage. Before this, companies such as JinkoSolar (688223.SH) and Trina Solar (688599.SH) had been setting up booths at the exhibition for consecutive years.

Looking back at Longi Green Energy’s move into energy storage—from announcing the acquisition, to completing the integration, and then rolling out system solutions—everything took less than five months. In November 2025, the company planned to obtain approximately 61.9998% of voting rights in JingKong Energy through equity acquisitions, capital increases and share subscriptions, and voting-rights proxy arrangements, thereby entering the energy storage track; in January this year, it completed the industrial and commercial change, with the legal representative of JingKong Energy changing to Zhong Baoshen, chairman of Longi Green Energy, and registered capital increasing to 450 million yuan; on March 17, the company stated in the disclosed research meeting minutes that it had completed the acquisition of JingKong Energy.

Against the backdrop of PV entering a cyclical adjustment period, integrated PV leading enterprises generally are accelerating the shift of their strategic focus toward the energy storage track. In recent years, JinkoSolar, Trina Solar, and JA Solar Technology (002459.SZ), which rank among the top four in module shipments, have all laid out the energy storage market in depth through self-built capacity or system integration, building a “PV-plus-storage integration” second growth curve.

By contrast, in Longi Green Energy’s earlier diversified strategy map, hydrogen energy has long been its key second growth curve, which has also led to its energy storage business starting at a later stage than peers in terms of scale.

However, during an exchange, Longi Green Energy’s vice president, Yu Haifeng, said that Longi is not “just getting into” energy storage. He believes that JingKong started to involve itself in the energy storage field more than ten years ago—nearly 10 years earlier than many peers. Few other PV companies have dared to propose a “full-stack resources” layout, and after acquiring JingKong, Longi rolled out products related to full-stack resources in only 100 days, with a much faster pace than its peers. JingKong Energy has been deeply involved in energy storage for more than ten years and has 31GWh of free production capacity and more than 12GWh of global grid-connected volume. This integration will quickly amplify Longi’s advantages in system integration and delivery.

It is worth noting that for Longi Green Energy, this is not only the integration of PV and energy storage businesses, but also the integration of the two companies. As Yu Haifeng explained, at the branding level, all related identifiers will be unified under “Longi,” and the independent JingKong Energy brand will no longer be retained, focusing on business synergies between Longi and JingKong.

On strategic trade-offs, Yu Haifeng said that Longi will not get involved in energy storage cell manufacturing in the short term. He believes that cell manufacturing has extremely high standards and belongs to large-scale manufacturing categories that can be rapidly expanded; at this stage, large-scale investment efficiency and risk do not match. In the medium to long term, it will be deeply bound with leading cell manufacturers, covering dimensions such as supply chain supply and joint R&D to form strategic synergy.

He further explained that aside from cells, the system and control stages are all completed independently by Longi. Yu Haifeng said the company will focus on investing in the power electronics sector; its existing PCS team has already developed to the third-generation product, and the core relies on its own team. It also does not rule out supplementing strength through external means.

In terms of market layout, the core direction of Longi’s energy storage business is high-value overseas markets. According to the plan, Longi will combine its PV marketing and service network across 120 countries worldwide with JingKong’s 13GWh global delivery experience, and plans to build 30 “all-round” local service centers in major PV-plus-storage integrated markets around the world before the end of 2028.

However, Yu Haifeng also candidly acknowledged during the exchange that because the PV business scale is huge at this stage, the energy storage business’s short-term effect on the group’s overall performance is limited. It is expected that in 2027–2028 the energy storage business will gradually enter a stage of stable returns, and at present it is still centered on R&D and service.

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