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According to a report by Xinhuanet on August 4, scientific research teams from Beijing Institute of Technology and other domestic institutions have successfully overcome the technical difficulties in the preparation of perovskite and crystalline silicon tandem solar cells, and developed perovskite and crystalline silicon tandem solar cells with a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 32.5% and long-term operating stability.

From an industry perspective, the photovoltaic industry chain is facing a major change. According to the data on photovoltaic power generation construction released by the National Energy Administration, in the first half of 2024, my country's new photovoltaic installed capacity will be 102.48GW, a year-on-year increase of 30.7%. While the scale continues to grow, the photovoltaic industry chain is facing a new round of industry shock cycle, with oversupply in the photovoltaic main chain and pressure on manufacturing profits.

Wind data shows that as of the latest closing, the total market value of the A-share photovoltaic sector is about 1.4 trillion yuan. Some institutions have analyzed that with the policy efforts and the continued increase in industry losses, it is expected that backward production capacity will continue to withdraw, promoting the industry to resume healthy development, and the price of the entire industry chain is expected to bottom out.

A major breakthrough

According to a Xinhuanet report on August 4, a scientific research team from Beijing Institute of Technology and other domestic institutions has successfully overcome the technical difficulties in the preparation of perovskite and crystalline silicon tandem solar cells, and developed a perovskite/crystalline silicon tandem solar cell with a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 32.5% and long-term operating stability. The relevant results were published in the international academic journal Science on the 2nd.

At present, the most common solar cells in production and life are crystalline silicon cells, and their photoelectric conversion efficiency is about 26%. Perovskite/crystalline silicon stacked cells are a new type of solar cell that absorbs light by combining crystalline silicon and perovskite. Compared with traditional crystalline silicon cells, they have the characteristics of low power generation cost and high photoelectric conversion efficiency. For a long time, this new type of cell has often encountered problems such as uneven perovskite film and poor crystal quality during the preparation process, resulting in defects in the finished product, affecting the photoelectric conversion rate and service life.

"To prepare this type of stacked battery, a layer of perovskite precursor liquid is first deposited on the crystalline silicon battery. When the precursor liquid dries, it gradually forms crystal nuclei and crystallizes, and finally 'grows' into a wide-bandgap perovskite film. However, due to the diverse components and complex phase state of the crystal seeds in the perovskite material, the 'grown' film is uneven." Chen Qi, a professor at the Institute of Frontier Interdisciplinary Sciences of BIT, said that the team innovatively proposed a wide-bandgap perovskite crystallization control strategy, adding long-chain alkylamines to the precursor liquid to accelerate the "growth" of high-quality crystal nuclei and inhibit the "growth" of low-quality crystal nuclei, thereby preparing a uniform, high-quality, wide-bandgap perovskite film.

Chen Yihua, assistant professor of the School of Materials Science and Engineering of BIT, said that based on this innovative idea, the team prepared 1 square centimeter and 25 square centimeter perovskite/crystalline silicon stacked cells, respectively, with corresponding photoelectric conversion efficiencies of 32.5% and 29.4%, both better than traditional crystalline silicon solar cells. In addition, after the maximum power point tracking test, the samples showed long-term operational stability.

Chen Qi said that this achievement has laid a key technical foundation for the development of perovskite/crystalline silicon tandem solar cells, and is expected to promote their industrial application, improve the efficiency of photovoltaic power generation, and help the green and low-carbon transformation of energy.

Big changes in the industry

From an industry perspective, the photovoltaic industry chain has been facing a major change since the beginning of this year.

According to the data of the National Energy Administration on photovoltaic power generation construction in the first half of 2024, my country's newly installed photovoltaic capacity in the first half of the year was 102.48GW, a year-on-year increase of 30.7%. Among them, centralized photovoltaic power generation was 49.6GW and distributed photovoltaic power generation was 52.88GW.

While the scale continues to grow, the photovoltaic industry chain is facing a new round of industry shock cycle. The photovoltaic main chain is facing oversupply, the manufacturing end is under pressure to make profits, silicon material prices are falling, silicon wafer overcapacity is prominent, N-type is accelerating penetration, and the profit margin of the entire main industry chain is squeezed to the extreme. On the one hand, companies are facing a cash flow crisis; on the other hand, shutting down production lines and reducing operating rates have become the mainstream, and the "survivors" of the photovoltaic industry are king.

Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, recently said that in the first half of this year, the prices of polysilicon and silicon wafers fell by more than 40%; the prices of battery cells and modules fell by more than 15%, among which the price of polysilicon generally fell below the cost line of enterprises; the bidding prices of modules also continued to decline.

"2024 is a very difficult year for the company and also a difficult year for the industry," said Zhong Baoshen, chairman of LONGi Green Energy, recently.

Judging from the semi-annual performance forecasts of photovoltaic listed companies, except for a few companies that achieved profits, most companies suffered losses to varying degrees. Specifically:

Longi Green Energy, a leading silicon wafer and module company, expects a net loss of 4.8 billion to 5.5 billion yuan in the first half of 2024.

Tongwei Co., Ltd., a leading silicon material company, expects to lose 3 billion to 3.3 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

TCL Zhonghuan, a leading silicon wafer company, expects a net loss of 2.9 billion to 3.2 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

JA Solar, a component integration company known for its stability, expects a loss of 800 million to 1.2 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

In response to the challenges faced by the photovoltaic industry, relevant policies are being introduced intensively. On July 15, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially closed the public solicitation of opinions on the "Regulatory Conditions for Photovoltaic Manufacturing Industry (2024 Edition)" and "Administrative Measures for Announcement of Photovoltaic Manufacturing Industry (2024 Edition)" (Draft for Comments). The above documents are the "top-level design" to further strengthen the management of the photovoltaic manufacturing industry and promote the high-quality development of the industry.

Compared with the "Standardized Conditions for the Photovoltaic Manufacturing Industry (2021 Edition)", this revision is mainly reflected in the following six aspects: First, continue to guide photovoltaic companies to reduce photovoltaic manufacturing projects that simply expand production capacity, and avoid low-level repeated expansion; second, improve the requirements for some technical indicators; third, strengthen quality management and intellectual property protection; fourth, guide the improvement of green development levels; fifth, encourage participation in standard formulation (revision) work; sixth, strengthen the dynamic management of the standardized list.

Analysts pointed out that the above revision focuses on raising the industry entry threshold, avoiding low-level repeated expansion, and guiding the construction of advanced production capacity. This conforms to the needs of industry development and the latest technological development, and is conducive to guiding and avoiding low-level blind expansion and optimizing the development environment of the photovoltaic industry.

The China Photovoltaic Industry Association remains optimistic about the photovoltaic market and maintains its earlier forecast, predicting that global new installed capacity will be 390GW-430GW in 2024, and my country's new installed capacity is expected to be 190GW-220GW.

Soochow Securities believes that industry prices are accelerating to bottom out due to the imbalance between supply and demand. Looking back at the first half of 2024, after the silicon material bottleneck was released, industry output was significantly released, battery technology was iterated, and demand growth slowed down, which pushed prices in all links to fall rapidly. The industry entered the stage of operational cash transfusion, and prices of the entire industrial chain bottomed out.

Everbright Securities also analyzed that the domestic photovoltaic industry has overcapacity, the price of photovoltaic main materials has fallen sharply, and the prices of many links have fallen below the cash cost, and the industry has entered the stage of de-capacity. Looking ahead to the future market, with the efforts of the policy side and the continued increase in industry losses, it is expected that backward production capacity will continue to withdraw, promoting the industry to resume healthy development.

Source: China Securities

Statement: All information content of Databao does not constitute investment advice. The stock market is risky and investment should be cautious.

Editor: Xie Yilan

Proofreading: Yang Lilin

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