it is expected that 30gw will be shipped by the end of the year. how is the cost reduction and efficiency improvement of the heterojunction technology route going?
2024-09-08
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reducing costs and increasing efficiency is the first principle of the photovoltaic industry.
n-type topcon technology (tunnel oxide passivation contact technology), heterojunction technology, and perovskite technology are known as the next generation of photovoltaic technology routes that will set off a new round of photovoltaic industry revolution. compared with the n-type topcon technology that has been mass-produced and "occupies the market", the cost reduction route and large-scale development process of heterojunction technology have always been the focus of the industry.
"it is expected that by the end of this year, the actual shipments of photovoltaic heterojunction products are expected to reach 30gw. in 2025, the conversion efficiency of heterojunction batteries still has room for improvement of no less than 0.5%, and the average mass production module shipment power is expected to reach 740w+." said ma yiwei, vice president of solarzoom, a photovoltaic industry organization.
"the average mass production conversion efficiency of the current advanced production capacity of heterojunction batteries has exceeded 25.6%. at the same scale, the cost gap between heterojunction batteries and the current mainstream technology route has narrowed to 0.04 yuan/watt to 0.05 yuan/watt." ma yiwei believes that the production cost per watt will surpass the current mainstream battery technology route due to the mass production introduction of 0bb technology (busbarless technology, which can improve the power generation efficiency of photovoltaic panels), economies of scale, and rising commodity prices. the lcoe (levelized cost of electricity, the average cost per unit of energy) of heterojunction products calculated based on production costs will be further reduced.
silicon wafer cost accounts for the largest proportion of heterojunction battery cost.
wang jin, vice president of huasheng new energy and general manager of the silicon wafer business unit, said: "the deep-level requirements of heterojunction cells for silicon wafers are nothing more than lower unit watt cost, more stable efficiency output and finer size. cost reduction should be carried out comprehensively from silicon materials, crystal pulling, slicing, and impurity gettering."
yang bochuan, director of the global photovoltaic research institute of risen energy (300118.sz), a representative company of heterojunction technology, told china business news: "the company reduces costs through cost-cutting methods such as thin silicon wafers and low-silver paste. at present, the non-silicon cost of the company's heterojunction cells is about 0.21 yuan/watt, and the cost of metallization has dropped to 0.048 yuan/watt. the pure silver consumption of mass-produced heterojunction cells is less than 6mg/watt."
according to jiang fangdan, director of the photovoltaic research institute of the photovoltaic technology department of tongwei co., ltd. (600438.sh), the company's 1gw heterojunction pilot line is mainly based on three core technologies: copper interconnection, 0bb and double-sided microcrystals. he believes that the industrialization path of heterojunction will inevitably be divided into two types in the future. one will be efficiency-oriented and the other will be cost-oriented, forming a cost advantage over other technologies in similar power segments.
cost reduction on the equipment side is also an extremely important and critical link in the heterojunction industry's process of achieving full profitability.
zhou jian, chairman of heterojunction equipment company maxsun technology (300751.sz), said: "the company's latest heterojunction 4.0 production line has a total capacity of 1.2gw. compared with the old production line, this new production line can reduce non-silicon costs by 0.025 yuan/watt to 0.03 yuan/watt."
talking about the company's next goals this year, zhou jian said that in less than 4 months this year, the mass production efficiency of heterojunction batteries is expected to exceed 26%, and the efficiency of heterojunction perovskite stacked batteries will exceed 30% in full size.
it is worth mentioning that the current heterojunction production capacity is far behind the 800gw production capacity of topcon batteries. according to statistics from the industry organization solarzoom new energy think tank, as of the end of june 2024, there are about 67 heterojunction battery production lines in operation in china, with an effective production capacity of 42.3gw and 55.5gw under construction. the largest of them is huasheng new energy, with a production capacity of more than 20gw.
however, more and more large-scale bidding projects of central state-owned enterprises have begun to set up separate bidding sections for heterojunctions.
as of early september, a total of 10.33gw of heterojunction products have been tendered this year. since the end of last year, the tenders for state power investment corporation 900mw, huaneng 500mw, green power 3.5gw, datang 1gw, cgn 540mw+780mw, cnnc huineng 2gw, and china power construction 1.5gw have been gradually announced and implemented.
wang bohua, honorary chairman of the china photovoltaic industry association, recently publicly stated that heterojunction solar cells have good market prospects due to their high conversion efficiency, low attenuation rate, and high bifaciality. "however, if heterojunction cells are to be mass-produced, the industry still faces bottlenecks in reducing costs and improving equipment stability."
according to the china photovoltaic industry association, the market share of heterojunction solar cells will increase from 2.6% in 2023 to 34.3% in 2030.
(this article comes from china business network)
