LONGi reaches 28.29% in a silicon cell

In May this year LONGi had recorded 28.13% efficiency for a single-junction silicon cell. On 24 September the mark rose to 28.29%, on a hybrid interdigitated back-contact cell, verified by ISFH in Germany. It is the company's third record in 2026, after 28.04% and 28.13%.

The Fraunhofer ISE Photovoltaics Report, in its 14 July 2026 update, gives the scale of the gap between laboratory and factory: the weighted average efficiency of crystalline silicon modules on the market was 22.7% in the fourth quarter of 2024. The record is a laboratory cell, and pv magazine notes the route still has to cut resistive losses in the p-type contact before it can scale.

For a plant operator the effect does not show up in contracted generation, but in residual value. An efficiency ladder that moves three times in one year shortens the economic life of the production line before it shortens the service life of the installed module, and anyone studying repowering starts comparing the same area producing more for a later entrant.

The distance between the 28.29% cell and the 22.7% module on the market measures what can still migrate to the production line. A long supply contract signed now carries that difference, and that is where the decision on term pays off or does not.