In 2023, China's photovoltaic industry will conduct a round of elimination

Looking back at the overall photovoltaic market trend in 2022, there will be more twists and turns and tests. Behind this, the fierce competition in the price of the industrial chain, the continuous stream of cross-border photovoltaic companies, the unstoppable vertical integration of leading companies, and the accelerated iteration of N-type photovoltaic cell technology. In 2022, the photovoltaic industry will grow rapidly, making enterprises inside and outside the industry full of confidence in the development of photovoltaics. Zhong Baoshen, chairman of LONGi Green Energy, talked about the new changes in the photovoltaic industry this year, "Enterprises in the industry have expanded their production on a large scale. I believe that the opportunities brought about by growth today will also become opportunities tomorrow when the growth rate slows down." Risks in the future.” The leaders of many leading photovoltaic companies, including Zhong Baoshen, believe that the photovoltaic industry will continue to grow in 2023. From the data point of view, China's photovoltaic industry will make history in 2022: the newly installed capacity will break through a new high, and the output value of the entire industry will increase significantly. After years of accelerated running, a new round of knockout competition in the photovoltaic industry has begun. From 80GW to 100GW: The demand ceiling has not yet arrived. What is the scale of newly installed photovoltaic capacity in China in 2022? Although the official data has not yet been released, it is certain that this will be a record number. According to the data of the National Energy Administration, from January to November 2022, China's newly installed photovoltaic capacity is 65.71GW, which has exceeded the whole year of 2021. Combined with the information at the National Energy Work Conference in 2023: the new installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaics in 2022 is expected to exceed 120GW, which means that the new installed capacity of photovoltaics in the whole year will exceed 80GW.

As a typical cyclical industry, after experiencing the trough in 2018, the domestic photovoltaic industry has taken an accelerated pace since 2019. At the same time, the incremental structure is also undergoing subtle changes. In 2019, the ratio of new installed capacity of centralized photovoltaics to distributed photovoltaics is close to 6:4. But by the end of the first three quarters of 2022, this ratio structure has changed to 3:7. It is also predicted that in the whole year of 2022, the new installed capacity of distributed photovoltaic and centralized photovoltaic in my country will reach 51GW and 40GW respectively. For two consecutive years, distribution has become the main force driving the growth of photovoltaic demand. The visible increase in installed capacity means that in the past few years, my country's photovoltaic industry has no worries about demand. The increase in volume has also led to the improvement of upstream and downstream profits in the industrial chain. In the first three quarters of 2022 alone, A-share photovoltaic companies achieved a total operating income of 961.706 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 125.033 billion yuan. As a result, the output value of the entire industry chain in 2023 will exceed one trillion yuan or it will be just a step in the door. However, will the demand engine installed in the photovoltaic industry be weak? At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, when the entire industry is summarizing and looking forward, the general consensus in the industry is that the growth rate of new domestic photovoltaic installations will decline, but the number will still set a new record. In 2022, the growth rate of newly installed photovoltaic capacity in China is expected to exceed 50%, hitting the peak in recent years. Therefore, under the high base, the growth rate of new installed capacity in 2023 will most likely be lower than this value. "We predict that the newly installed capacity of photovoltaics in the world is expected to reach 330GW in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 39%, and the overall growth rate of the industry in the next three years is expected to continue to exceed 25%." Wang Zheyu, an analyst in the power equipment and new energy industry of Essence Securities, believes that, Although the photovoltaic industry has entered the stage of price premium by volume, the market scale is still in the expansion range.

In fact, whether it is industry forecasts or policy target setting, it does not seem impossible for China's photovoltaic industry to increase its installed capacity to more than 100GW in 2023. At the China Energy Work Conference in 2023, a set of data attracted attention: It is estimated that the installed capacity of wind power will reach about 430 million kilowatts in 2023, and the installed capacity of solar power will reach about 490 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity of the two will reach 920 million kilowatts. Combined with the new installed capacity data in 2022, the cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar in the country will reach 160 million kilowatts (160GW) in 2023. According to estimates, in 2022, the newly installed capacity of wind power in China will be about 40GW, and the newly installed capacity of photovoltaics may exceed 80GW. Therefore, taking this structural ratio as a reference, it will be a high probability event that the new installed capacity of photovoltaics will exceed 100 GW in 2023. From this point of view, the demand ceiling of the photovoltaic industry has not yet arrived, and the industry's "sea of stars" is still full of imagination.

Silicon materials rose from 33% to 42%: profit redistribution under price cuts. In the last month of 2022, the most magical drama is the sharp decline in the price trend of polysilicon materials. On January 4, when the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Silicon Industry Branch (hereinafter referred to as the Silicon Industry Branch) restarted polysilicon quotations after three months, the topic of sharp drop in silicon material prices became a hot topic again. In 2022, the price of the industrial chain will remain high, which has always been a heart disease for the downstream. Taking silicon materials as an example, at the beginning of the year, the price range of monocrystalline dense materials was 218,000 to 238,000 yuan/ton, and the average transaction price was 229,100 yuan/ton. By the end of August, the prices of this group had risen to 303,000 to 308,000 yuan/ton respectively, and the average transaction price was as high as 305,100 yuan/ton, an increase of 33%. The crazy price of silicon materials quickly made the profit distribution of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain unbalanced. In the first three quarters of 2022, when A-share photovoltaic companies have achieved a cumulative net profit of over 120 billion yuan, only the three leading silicon material companies Tongwei, Daqo Energy and TBEA have "divided" a total of 47.871 billion yuan , accounting for 38%. "Silicon materials account for about 42% of the cost of modules, but share about 70% of the profits of the entire industry." According to the analysis of Donghai Securities, if the price of silicon materials declines, the overall profit distribution of the industry chain will return to a more reasonable range. Surprisingly, the downward adjustment of upstream prices represented by silicon materials is very rapid. According to the latest data from the Silicon Industry Branch, the price of monocrystalline dense materials fell from a high of 306,000 yuan/ton to the current 176,200 yuan/ton this week, a drop of 42.4%; the average transaction price of M6 monocrystalline silicon wafers (166mm/155μm) The average transaction price of M10 monocrystalline silicon wafers (182mm/150μm) dropped to 3.74 yuan/piece, a week-on-week decrease of 17.4%; G12 monocrystalline silicon wafers (210mm /150μm) the average transaction price dropped to 4.9 yuan/piece, a week-on-week decrease of 25.3%. "The change in the price of silicon materials still reflects that retail leads the rise, and long-term order prices follow up; retail leads the decline, and long-term price prices follow up." Lu Jinbiao, deputy director of the Expert Committee of the Silicon Industry Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, told reporters, "This year's silicon The supply of materials should be about 1.5 million tons, which can produce 600GW modules. There is a balance, but not a lot. The price of silicon materials has generally declined, but the decline in the first half of the year is not large.” In fact, the price drop of silicon materials in 2023 has already Become the most certain event in the industry chain. However, Wang Zheyu, an analyst in the power equipment and new energy industry of Essence Securities, also believes that the downward trend of silicon materials from the high point of the cycle will not be achieved overnight. "After the price of silicon materials continues to drop, a large amount of profit margins will be released." A photovoltaic business person told the reporter of 21st Century Business Herald that the profits released by silicon materials will be redistributed by downstream links. For vertically integrated module manufacturers As far as silicon materials are concerned, silicon materials will no longer become a bottleneck restricting demand, and the competitive landscape will be optimized again.

From 7% to 35%: N-type batteries start mass production. Under the main theme of N-type gradually replacing P-type technology in the past two years, the mass production process of new battery technology has always been the core focus of the photovoltaic industry. In November 2021, the module leader JinkoSolar took the lead in launching the Tiger Neo series modules using N-type TOPCon cell technology. Since then, as a fan of TOPCon technology, JinkoSolar has aggressively expanded its production capacity. From January to July 2022, from Hefei, Anhui, Haining, Zhejiang to Jianshan, Zhejiang, the company has finalized a new production capacity of 35GW N-type TOPCon batteries. In a discussion on TOPCon technology, Qian Jing, vice president of JinkoSolar, said bluntly, "In the case of the same performance, JinkoSolar chooses cost and cost performance." Coincidentally, one year later, when the wheel of time came again At the turn of the year, Risen, which mainly promotes HJT (heterojunction), played the leading role: in December 2022, Risen announced mass production of "700Wp + heterojunction Fuxi" modules, and the company plans to Module cell and module production capacity will reach 5GW in the first half of 2023, and will reach 15GW in the second half of 2023. It is undeniable that in 2022, N-type technology will continue to maintain high popularity. On the one hand, new production capacity projects such as TOPCon, HJT, and xBC are surging; on the other hand, N-type technology has also become a starting point for new players to gather cross-border photovoltaics, improving the supply capacity of the entire industry. Objectively speaking, in the mass production process, TOPCon is faster than HJT. Therefore, in 2022, the overall capacity planning of TOPCon will increase sharply. According to incomplete statistics from 21st Century Business Herald reporters, as of December 2022, 28 A-share companies have clearly laid out N-type TOPCon batteries, with a planned production capacity of 360GW. Among them, the scale of cross-border companies should not be underestimated: Junda, Mubang Hi-Tech, Huangshi Group, Zhongke Cloud Network, etc. have planned a total production capacity of 61GW N-type TOPCon batteries. "TOPCon is a battery technology path with a faster industrialization speed at the present stage, and its investment performance-to-price ratio with current PERC technology is expected to be the same in the short term." A new energy industry analyst told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter. However, although N-type battery technology has announced a considerable expansion plan in the past year, and new technologies represented by TOPCon have begun to embark on the road to mass production, 2023 can be called the mass production of N-type batteries. new year.

China Photovoltaic Industry Association predicts that by the end of 2022, domestic N-type TOPCon production capacity will exceed 55GW. According to the 8-month construction cycle, more than half of the 360GW N-type TOPCon battery production capacity announced by the above-mentioned 28 A-share companies is expected to be implemented in 2023. Neutral forecasts, such as EnergyTrend, a new energy network of Jibang New Energy Network, predict that in the production capacity of N-type cells in 2023, the production capacity of N-type TOPCon can reach 100GW, accounting for 56% of the total production capacity of N-type. Optimists such as Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Network (SMM) predict that by the end of 2023, TOPCon battery production capacity will reach 305.9GW, of which the annual new production capacity will reach 228.5GW. At the same time, an important reference indicator for the N-type to gradually replace the P-type is the market penetration rate. Soochow Securities predicts that by the end of 2022, TOPCon's annual effective production capacity will be about 30GW, with a penetration rate of about 7% to 10%. CITIC Securities further predicts that in 2023, technologies such as TOPCon, HJT, and xBC batteries will gradually increase in volume, and the penetration rate of N-type batteries is expected to increase to 35%, presenting a situation where multiple technical routes coexist.