In 2021，the China solar glass industry consumption (production + import volume – export volume) reached 8.4879 million tons. The industry presents a duopoly competition between Xinyi Solar and Flat Glass. Since 2013, the combined production capacity of the two companies has always maintained more than 40% of the industry’s total output, and in 2021 it reached over 50%.
This sub-industry also gave birth to two rich people. One is Li Xianyi, who owns Xinyi Solar and the “Glass King”, and the other is Ruan Hongliang, who rarely appears in the public eye. According to the 2022 Hurun Global Rich List, the former has a net worth of 51 billion yuan; the latter is 57 billion yuan,.
Mr Ruan Hongliang is the CEO of Flat Group
Flat Group has been established for 24 years. It is a comprehensive enterprise integrating glass R&D, manufacturing, processing and sales. Its main products cover four major fields: solar photovoltaic glass, engineering glass, float glass and household glass, as well as EPC photovoltaic glass. Power station engineering construction, mining and sales of quartz mines for glass, production bases are located in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, Fengyang, Anhui, and Vietnam.
In the mid-1980s, 23-year-old Ruan Hongliang became the director of the Jiaxing Glass Products Factory,and worked there for 14 years. In 1998, he and a few friends gathered 60,000 yuan to co-found Naibang Economic and Trade (the predecessor of Flat Group), and made the first pot of gold through glass trading business. At that time, Li Xianyi had been involved in automotive glass for ten years and officially laid out the field of architectural glass.
In the 21st century, Flat began to invest and build factories to produce silver mirrors, tempered glass, laminated glass and insulating glass, and became designated suppliers of IKEA. By 2006, the company had an annual income of 200 million yuan, but Ruan Hongliang was not satisfied with this, but set his sights on the photovoltaic industry.
Flat group is the 2nd largest solar glass factory in China
At that time, the photovoltaic glass industry was monopolized by four foreign-funded enterprises, namely Saint-Gobain in France, Pilkington in the United Kingdom, Asahi Glass in Japan . The import price was as high as USD12/㎡.
Ruan Hongliang saw the business opportunities, “I struggled with my mind for a week, During that week, my mind was full of glass when I was eating and walking, and I couldn’t hear anything else.” In the end, he spent 12 million dollars to enter the segment. With the ignition of the first 100t/d photovoltaic glass production line, Flat became the first enterprise in China to produce photovoltaic glass products on a large scale.
At the beginning, it lost USD30,000 per month, and it continued to lose for 3 months until the product passed the European certification that it successfully opened the international market. Flat is the first photovoltaic glass company in China and the fourth in the world to obtain Swiss SPF certification. In the future, we have successfully developed UV-blocking solar ultra-clear patterned glass and its manufacturing method, the melting capacity of solar ultra-clear patterned glass, anti-reflection high transmittance solar ultra-clear patterned glass and its manufacturing method.
Solar glass production lines
In 2011, Flat began to extend to the upstream of the industrial chain and obtained the mining right of 18 million tons of quartzite mining area in Fengyang, Anhui. Three years later, the company entered the field of photovoltaic power station engineering. In June, a total of 10.228MW distributed photovoltaic power stations were successfully connected to the state grid and completed various business layouts. Since then, it has also introduced a technologically advanced Low-E coating production line from Germany, and is preparing to build factories in Vietnam and other places.
In 2011, Flat achieved an operating income of 1.37 billion dollars and a net profit of 0.33 billion dollars, setting a record high. ranking second in the industry.