GCL-Poly disclosed in its annual report last year that the comprehensive power consumption of granular silicon at the Xuzhou base was controlled at 14.8 kWh/kg, and the comprehensive steam consumption was 15.3 kWh/kg.

GCL-Poly disclosed in its annual report last year that the comprehensive power consumption of granular silicon at Xuzhou base was controlled at 14.8 kWh/kg, and the comprehensive steam consumption was 15.3 kWh/kg. During the same period, the average comprehensive power consumption of polysilicon was 63kWh/kg.

Due to its low energy consumption, granular silicon has a cost advantage. Song Hao, Director of Investor Relations of GCL-Poly Securities Affairs Department, previously told Jiemian News that compared with traditional rod-shaped silicon, the cost per kilogram of granular silicon at the Xuzhou base has dropped by more than 30%.

On the user side, Zheshang Securities research report stated that granular silicon has better filling properties and is conducive to continuous Czochralski crystal pulling, which is a necessary condition for the application of large-scale CCZ technology (ultimate Czochralski single crystal technology). Compared with the current traditional The RCZ single crystal re-investment method, pulls crystal more efficiently.

A photovoltaic analyst pointed out to Interface News that compared to rod-shaped silicon, granular silicon has slightly higher impurities. In addition, its filler density is high. In order to avoid blockage of large materials, companies currently use mostly partially doped granular silicon.

But another person in the silicon material industry pointed out that there are already downstream companies that all use granular silicon to achieve crystal pulling. Who is doing the layout for

?

Granular silicon technology can be traced back to the 1980s.

In 1987, the American MEMC Company officially built a 1250t/a granular polysilicon production line. It used silane to decompose silane on a fluidized bed to obtain granular silicon. The product reached the quality specifications of electronic grade granular silicon, but its business did not perform well thereafter.

In 2006, REC Silicon, a subsidiary of the American REC Group, began to build a fluidized bed granular silicon production line, but later terminated the production line due to long-term losses and other reasons.

The company was once a global polysilicon giant. According to a recent report by "Energy 100", the Korean company and Hanwha will become the largest shareholder of REC Silicon and restart the polysilicon manufacturing plant in Moses Lake, United States, in 2023.

In addition, the American company SunEdison also has a patent for granular silane fluidized bed technology. The company was formerly known as the American Hughes Electronic Materials Company, founded in 1959. It is one of the originators of silicon materials in the global photovoltaic industry and the largest clean energy developer in the world. However, the company declared bankruptcy in 2016 due to poor investment management and other reasons.

In that year, GCL-Poly acquired related assets such as SunEdison and its subsidiary MEMC Pasadena for about US$150 million, and began its industrial layout of granular silicon.

In February 2021, GCL-Poly announced that it had fully mastered all mature processes and mass production technologies of granular silicon, and officially entered the 10,000-ton scale.

In addition to GCL-Poly, Shaanxi Tianhong is also developing granular silicon technology and achieving mass production in China.

The company was established in 2014 as a Sino-foreign joint venture jointly funded by Shaanxi Nonferrous Tianhong New Energy and REC Silicon. It has a granular silicon production capacity of 18,000 tons per year.

This year, Joly Holdings (300393.SZ), which specializes in photovoltaic backsheets and batteries, also announced a 14 billion investment in granular silicon.

In its response to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s inquiry, Jolywood stated that the main source of technology for the project is a domestic technology company. The company has gradually completed the construction of a silane production workshop and a polysilicon cracking workshop since 2017, and completed small and pilot tests. It has two invention patents and nine utility model patents for the production of granular silicon by the silane fluidized bed method.

According to Jiemian News, the source of this technology has nothing to do with GCL-Poly. Lv Jinbiao, deputy director of the Expert Committee of the China Nonferrous Metal Silicon Industry Branch, once published an article "Jolywood Photovoltaic's Granular Silicon Technology" on PV-Tech, analyzing the granular silicon technology of Zhonghuan Co., Ltd.

Lu Jinbiao believes that judging from relevant disclosures, the granular silicon technology used by the company is likely to come from the team of Inner Mongolia Xingyang Technology Co., Ltd. The company was prepared in 2014 and completed a pilot line of over 1,000 tons. Since last year, it has been recruiting talents in silane preparation and fluidized bed.

Lu Jinbiao pointed out in the article that Zhejiang Zhongning Silicon Industry has a silane fluidized bed patent in China, but it has not achieved mass production; Zhejiang Jinggong Technology, a photovoltaic equipment manufacturer, also claims to have a silane fluidized bed process package, but has not achieved mass production. production performance. Does

have a future?

Despite its advantages, granular silicon has its share of doubts in the industry.

One of the main problems is that granular silicon has high impurities. Whether it can meet the needs of N-type silicon wafers and cells in next-generation photovoltaic technology remains to be verified. Compared with the current mainstream P-type batteries, N-type batteries require higher purity silicon materials.

CITIC Securities once pointed out in a research report that during the production, packaging, and transportation processes of granular silicon, it is easy to absorb impurities and rub against each other to easily produce silicon powder , resulting in a low life span or an increase in carbon content, which affects its performance to a certain extent. Used on a large scale on N-type silicon wafers.

GCL-Poly stated at this year's performance meeting that its granular silicon metal impurities are stable at 3pbb/W, and it hopes to control impurities less than 1pbb/W in the future.

According to Song Hao, GCL-Poly's trial production of N-type silicon materials has achieved clear results, and 60%-70% of the N-type silicon material supply can be guaranteed in the future.

Previously, the industry generally believed that large-scale production of granular silicon was difficult. As of now, GCL-Poly is the only company in the world that promotes the mass production of granular silicon. In March this year, the production capacity of 30,000 tons of granular silicon was reached. But this only accounted for 6% of the country's total polysilicon production last year.

GCL-Poly has less disclosure of the key cost, energy consumption and other data of granular silicon, and lacks certification by a third-party authoritative organization, which is also an area of ​​doubt in the industry.

GCL-Poly is working hard to expand its granular silicon production capacity. It has planned and constructed two 100,000-ton granular silicon manufacturing bases and one 300,000-ton granular silicon manufacturing base in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, Leshan, Sichuan, and Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

Among them, 300,000 tons of granular silicon was jointly invested and built by Jiangsu Zhongneng, a subsidiary of GCL-Poly, and Shanghai Machinery CNC (603185.SH), with an estimated total investment of 18 billion yuan. Shangji CNC holds a 35% stake in the first phase of the 60,000-ton granular silicon project.

This is the first time that downstream silicon wafers have participated in the production of granular silicon. Recently, GCL-Poly has roped in Zhonghuan Holdings to provide technical services for its silicon material production.

GCL-Poly once told Jiemian News that the overall investment idea for granular silicon is to cooperate with key downstream customers in terms of equity in building new production capacity in the future.

GCL-Poly predicts that its total silicon material production capacity will reach 360,000 tons by the end of this year, of which granular silicon production capacity will reach 300,000 tons.

Industry insiders told Jiemian News that as silicon wafer manufacturers downstream of silicon materials, on the premise of meeting product demand, they consider more about silicon material prices rather than technology choices. If

granular silicon wants to gain market dominance, the most critical factor is whether the price can truly drop after large-scale mass production.

As of April 13, silicon prices have risen for the 13th consecutive week.

Data released by the Silicon Industry Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association show that this week the average transaction price of domestic monocrystalline composite materials rose to 251,500 yuan/ton, a week-on-week increase of 0.32%; the average transaction price of monocrystalline dense materials rose to 249,100 yuan/ton, a week-on-week increase of 0.28%.