confirm the outstanding achievements of my country's photovoltaic industry - the manufacturing end of
. The output of the main links accounts for more than 2/3 of the world's output, with an output value exceeding 750 billion yuan. Among them, the output of polysilicon and modules ranked first in the world for 11 and 15 consecutive years respectively. The cumulative installed capacity of
application has increased rapidly from 6.5 GW at the end of 2012 to 306 GW at the end of 2021, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years.
From the "three heads outside" of raw materials, equipment and market 10 years ago to the "multiple firsts" that occupies a global dominance, my country's international competitive advantages in the photovoltaic industry chain are highlighted. In the past decade, how did the photovoltaic industry get out of the predicament and accumulate strength? What are the highlights of current industrial development and what challenges are faced?
The industry is developing strongly, with a total export volume hitting a new high
Chengdu, Sichuan, Tongwei Solar Energy Jintang Base is busy. In the dust-free workshop, hundreds of smart cars shuttle back and forth to transport goods, and pieces of gray silicon wafers have been fleece, etching, coating and other processes to become dark blue battery cells.
"Compared with traditional battery cell production lines, Jintang base uses 5G, big data and other technologies, with a labor reduction of about 62%, and a production efficiency increase of about 161%. "A relevant person in charge of Tongwei Co., Ltd. introduced that the base has a total of 17 production lines, which can produce more than 2.5 million battery cells every day. It is driven by strong downstream demand and is currently in a state of full production and sales.
Since the beginning of this year, under the background of the "dual carbon" goal leading and the accelerated application of global clean energy, the main links of my country's photovoltaic industry chain have maintained a strong development momentum. In the first half of the year, the output of polycrystalline silicon, silicon wafers, battery cells and modules increased by 53.4%, 45.5%, 46.6% and 54.1% year-on-year respectively.
At the same time, the downstream photovoltaic application market has expanded rapidly, and the development trend of both distributed and centralized is obvious.
The sun is just right at noon. On the roof of Zhang Xialian, a villager in Ruichang Village, Taishun County, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, 20 photovoltaic panels are neatly arranged. "The sun was fine in August, and a total of 1,130 kWh of electricity was issued." Zhang Xialian opened the mobile APP and the power generation was clear at a glance. "In addition to self-use, the remaining electricity generated by solar energy was sold to power companies, and it earned nearly 5,000 yuan a year. The family was equivalent to adding a 'sunshine passbook'."
Last year, Taishun County was included in the pilot project of rooftop distributed photovoltaic development in the whole county. In addition to household photovoltaics, many companies have also chosen to turn idle space into treasure. Zhao Pu, general manager of State Grid Taishun County Power Supply Company, introduced that as of August this year, a total of 593 households in the county applied for the installation of photovoltaics, with the installed capacity increasing by more than 234% year-on-year.
In the first half of the year, the national photovoltaic power generation added 30.88 million kilowatts of installed capacity, accounting for 63.6% of the newly added distributed photovoltaic installed capacity, an increase of more than 10 percentage points over last year.
distributed photovoltaic installation is being accelerated, and the construction of large-scale scenic bases focusing on deserts, Gobi and desert areas is also in full swing. On the vast Gobi Desert, the 1 million kilowatt wind and photovoltaic base project in Urumqi, northern Xinjiang is in full swing, and 124 fans and more than 140,000 photovoltaic panels will "set up" here. "In the first half of the year, we started construction of 14 wind and photovoltaic projects in Xinjiang. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, we planned to invest 100 billion yuan to develop and build 20 million kilowatt new energy projects." Han Song, chairman of Huadian Xinjiang Power Generation Co., Ltd., said.
The domestic market is expanding rapidly, and overseas markets are also blooming at multiple points. "The current demand in the European market is strong, and the newly generated orders in the past few months are far higher than those that can be shipped. At the same time, the markets of Latin America, India, Australia and Southeast Asia are also growing rapidly." The person in charge of Jinlang Technology, a photovoltaic inverter manufacturer, introduced that the company's exports in the first half of the year were 1.293 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 61%.
Data provided by the China Photovoltaic Industry Association shows that in the first half of this year, the total export volume of product in the three links of photovoltaic silicon wafers, battery cells and modules was US$25.9 billion, an increase of 113% year-on-year, setting a new high.
"Photovoltaic power generation costs continue to decline. Driven by the global consensus on green and low-carbon transformation, the market demand for photovoltaic power generation continues to expand. In addition, emerging markets such as Brazil have also achieved different growth, and overseas markets have performed well since the beginning of this year."Wang Shijiang, Vice President of China Electronic Information Industry Development Research Institute and Secretary-General of China Photovoltaic Industry Association, analyzed.
Technology innovation reduces costs and increases efficiency, and the supply chain is basically independent and controllable.
Pull time back to 2012. At that time, my country's photovoltaic industry was overly dependent on foreign demand, insufficient development of domestic application market, and the development of key technologies and equipment and materials was slow. Coupled with anti-dumping and anti-subsidies from some countries, the entire industry entered a cold winter. Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, said: "In the past, more than 90% of photovoltaic products were exported. In 2012, the export volume of photovoltaic products fell by more than 40% year-on-year, bringing heavy pressure to the industry. "
policy is a timely help. In July 2013, the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of the Photovoltaic Industry". Since then, policies to support and regulate the development of the photovoltaic industry have been successively issued, covering market applications, finance and taxation, land and other aspects.
" A good policy environment helps to open up the domestic application market and also provides a larger stage for new technologies and new equipment. "An industry insider admitted that the
industry began to reflect. Only by grasping the key core raw materials and technologies in one's own hands can we firmly grasp the initiative in development. During the interview, many companies said that photovoltaics have broken into a cocoon and become a butterfly in ten years, and technological innovation is the key.
A diamond wire with a thickness of hair helps efficient cutting of silicon wafers. Compared with traditional sand wire cutting, the wire diameter and dielectric particle size of diamond wire cutting silicon wafers are smaller, which can reduce cutting losses and production costs. But at 10 A year ago, this technology was almost monopolized by foreign companies, with an import price of more than 1,000 yuan per kilometer. The production of 1 GW silicon wafer requires hundreds of thousands of kilometers of diamond wires.
In order to reduce the cost of slicing diamond wires and achieve large-scale mass production as soon as possible, Longi Green Energy chose to work with domestic diamond wire companies to work together. "When we first started using domestic diamond wires, the waste rate was relatively high. At that time, we cut six or seven million pieces a month, and we lost three or four million yuan. We withstand the pressure, firmly support domestic enterprises, improve quality together, and move forward innovate. "Zhong Baoshen, chairman of Longi Green Energy, introduced that after 2016, domestic photovoltaic companies began to use diamond wire cutting on a large scale, and the price dropped from more than 1,000 yuan per kilometer 10 years ago to about 40 yuan now. The number of square rods produced has increased by more than 40%, and the cutting speed of silicon wafers has increased by 300%, which can save more than 30 billion yuan in costs for my country's photovoltaic industry every year.
Granule silicon as small as mung beans has been reduced Energy consumption and cost of downstream silicon wafer production. At the site of the 100,000-ton granular silicon project in Leshan, Sichuan, the fluidized bed reactor emits a low operating sound, and granular silicon is continuously flowing into the storage tank, waiting for testing and packaging to be put into storage.
" Granular silicon is small in size, not only has strong fluidity, but also does not need to be broken, which can avoid the risk of impurities; the feeding barrel can be filled with 15%-20% granular silicon to avoid blockage of large pieces of material. "Lan Tianshi, co-CEO of GCL Technology, introduced that compared with the commonly used rod-shaped silicon currently used, the power consumption of producing granular silicon is lower. Using granular silicon to produce 1 GW modules can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 19%, helping to reduce application-side costs by about 19%.
From the revenue of GCL Technology in the first half of the year, the unit gross profit of granular silicon reached 154.7 yuan per kilogram, which is more than 15 percentage points higher than the gross profit margin of rod-shaped silicon. "From the development of granular silicon in 2010 and the industrialization in 2019, we have invested more than 2 billion yuan. "Jiang Limin, chief scientist of Xinxin Technology, said. Granular silicon and rod-shaped silicon belong to the two product forms of polysilicon. For more than 10 years, the industry has insisted on scientific and technological innovation, and my country's self-sufficiency rate of polysilicon has increased from about 47% to more than 80%.
Wang Shijiang introduced that in recent years, the speed of large-sized silicon wafers has been further accelerated. "By increasing the area of silicon wafers, the processing costs of all links of the photovoltaic industry chain can be diluted, thereby reducing the cost of photovoltaic power generation kilometers. "The total proportion of 182mm and 210mm silicon wafer sizes has increased rapidly from 4.5% in 2020 to 45% in 2021, and the proportion is expected to expand to 75% this year. At the same time, n-type batteries with higher conversion efficiency (heterojunction batteries and TOPCon batteries) are expected to increase rapidly.
In the past decade, the average kilowatt-hour cost of photovoltaic power generation in my country has dropped by about 70%, reaching less than 0.3 yuan/kWh."my country's photovoltaic industry has a significant feature. From the main manufacturing links of polysilicon, silicon wafers, batteries, and modules, to raw and auxiliary materials and supporting equipment such as slurry, backplanes, photovoltaic brackets, inverters, etc., it has formed the world's most complete industrial ecosystem, and the supply chain is basically independent and controllable. Once new technological innovations are available, we can support rapid industrialization." Wang Bohua said that not only that, the current cutting-edge research on photovoltaic technology has also made continuous breakthroughs. Since 2014, Chinese enterprises and research institutions have refreshed the efficiency of crystalline silicon cell laboratory more than 50 times.
faces multiple challenges and broadens the depth and breadth of the photovoltaic market
Under the background of the "dual carbon" goal, photovoltaics usher in development opportunities. A report released by the China Photovoltaic Industry Association predicts that from 2022 to 2025, my country's average annual installed capacity of photovoltaics will reach 85 million kilowatts to 101.25 million kilowatts, equivalent to the installed capacity of about 4 Three Gorges Power Stations.
At present, the industry is still facing challenges brought by high supply chain prices and the establishment of green trade barriers in some countries. Among them, the phased mismatch of supply and demand in the industry and the sharp fluctuations in prices in some supply chains have attracted particular attention.
Wang Shijiang introduced that from last year to June this year, the year-on-year increase in prices of silicon materials, silicon wafers, battery cells and modules was more than 38%, about 20%, more than 20%, and more than 9%, respectively. According to data from the Silicon Branch of the China Society of Nonferrous Metals Industry, as of the end of August, silicon materials had 29 price increases this year, from about 230,000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the year to more than 300,000 yuan/ton. The rise in silicon material prices has also driven downstream silicon wafers and module prices to rise accordingly.
"This year, the construction cost of photovoltaic power stations is relatively high, about 4 yuan/watt to 4.5 yuan/watt, of which the module price accounts for about 40% of the photovoltaic investment." Chong Feng, director of the Industrial Testing and Data Analysis Center of the National Power Investment Corporation Photovoltaic Innovation Center, introduced that the photovoltaic market demand is strong, but the capacity release cycle of production of various links of the industrial chain is relatively large, among which the capacity of battery cells and modules is released faster, while the production expansion cycle of silicon materials is slower and the production elasticity is small, resulting in a shortage of silicon materials; in addition, there are also signs of hoarding and waiting to be sold at a price, causing supply chain prices to fluctuate.
Chongfeng suggested strengthening in-depth docking and exchanges between upstream and downstream, establishing a supply and demand docking platform, and steadily accelerating the release of production capacity and orderly expansion of production according to downstream demand. "At present, some upstream and downstream enterprises are establishing long-term cooperation mechanisms through signing long-term orders, technical cooperation, and mutual equity participation, which will help clarify quantity, price and stabilize expectations." Xu Zhenyu, assistant vice president of Silicon Materials Division of Xinxin Technology, introduced.
In order to meet market demand, many photovoltaic companies choose to expand production or vertically integrate industrial layout to supplement the links where the company has less production capacity, and some companies have cross-border entry into photovoltaics. According to a relevant person in charge of Tongwei Co., Ltd., the company will increase its investment in silicon materials and battery links, and plans to reach 800,000 to 1 million tons and 130 GW to 150 GW from 2024 to 2026 respectively.
Preliminary statistics from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association that from the beginning of 2021 to June this year, there were more than 300 photovoltaic expansion projects in my country. Data from the enterprise information query platform Qichacha shows that as of the end of August, there were 496,200 photovoltaic-related enterprises in my country, and 91,500 new photovoltaic-related enterprises were added in the first eight months of this year, an increase of more than 45% year-on-year. "Moderate expansion of production capacity can help alleviate supply and demand contradictions, but excessive expansion may also bring about the risks of vicious competition and overcapacity," said Chongfeng.
How to avoid industrial convergence and achieve win-win development? Wang Shijiang believes that photovoltaic companies can dig deep into various "photovoltaic" application scenarios such as "photovoltaic construction", "photovoltaic transportation", "photovoltaic energy storage", and "photovoltaic hydrogen production", and expand the depth and breadth of the photovoltaic market through application model innovation; at the same time, blacksmiths must be strong themselves, and industry enterprises must still adhere to core technology research and construction of technology "moats", and be prepared to penetrate the cycle and win in fierce competition in terms of promoting diversified industrial layout, green supply chain and diversified application.
Source: People's Daily
Editor: Li Huibin
Evaluation: Jia Qi
Proofreading: Qin Sufeng
Editor: Deng Zhuo
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