At the beginning of the New Year, the photovoltaic industry has another round of agitation.
Reporters in the industry to understand that since the beginning of the year, the photovoltaic industry chain at various ends have improved the operating rate, part of the February average daily production level reached the highest in history, played the industry this year to continue to advance the “prelude”.
More inquiries and more production scheduling
To be specific, the production scheduling of silicon material link has generally remained high recently. Under the background of the increase of downstream operating rate, except for one of the 15 domestic silicon material enterprises for maintenance, the rest of them maintained normal production and delivery during the Spring Festival. The domestic output in January is expected to exceed 100,000 tons, increasing by more than 5% from the previous month. From the price point of view, the price of silicon material on the eve of the Spring Festival stopped falling and rebounded. The inquiry continued to increase on the first working day after the festival, and the quotation of some enterprises rose to 180 yuan/kg successively. Industry insiders said that with the active resumption of work after the holiday market, silicon prices are expected to remain firm in the short term.
In January, the inventory of silicon wafer continued to decrease, and the delivery pressure slowed down. Many silicon wafer enterprises increased the operating rate. The operating rate of first-line silicon wafer enterprises is expected to be about 65% to 70%, and that of second-line silicon wafer enterprises is expected to be over 60%. In terms of price, before the festival, a first-line silicon wafer enterprise took the initiative to raise prices, and during the Spring Festival, some enterprises have followed up. It is expected that the price of silicon wafer will continue to rise slightly under the background of the rebound of silicon price and the good demand.
Battery production is basically normal, mainstream enterprises have good order support, close to full production during the Spring Festival. In terms of price, the battery rose before the festival, after the festival, the latest high price of P-type 182, 210 products has reached 0.96-0.97 yuan/watt, compared with the previous 0.80 yuan/watt increased significantly.
During the Spring Festival, component enterprises maintained a high load operation. The output of components in February is expected to exceed 30 gigawatts, a month-on-month increase of more than 10%, and the one-day output is the highest level in history, which is comparable to that in November last year. In terms of price, due to fewer transactions during the Spring Festival, the price has not changed significantly. First-line enterprises maintain 1.75-1.80 yuan/watt, second-line 1.70-1.75 yuan/watt, and the new order is still under negotiation after the festival. First-line orders in hand are sufficient, and the price of the new order is still expected to be about 1.70 yuan/watt.
As for the auxiliary material link, in February, under the background of component production upgrading and replenishment plan gradually landing, the supply and demand of auxiliary materials such as rubber film and glass is expected to improve, and the production will increase accordingly. On the price, the price of the film in January is still low, the profit pressure is still there, February is expected to enter the window period of shock price rise. Due to the accelerated release of glass supply in the fourth quarter of last year, leading inventory increased to about two weeks, glass prices in January slightly adjusted, February inventory is expected to go, the price of stable operation.
Orders filled cost down
As for the bottoming out of the industry since the beginning of the year, the researchers of Changjiang Dianxin believe that the core reason is that under the background of accelerating price decline of the industrial chain, the production scheduling trend in January is good, the demand turning point is expected in advance, and the profit trend of each link has gradually clear expectations. From the perspective of demand, due to sufficient orders of components in hand and the recent decline of raw material costs, the production scheduling of integrated components leading has been improved compared with the previous planning. The performance was better than expected, given the traditional slow season.
In addition, from the perspective of profit trend, the price of the recent industrial chain rapidly fell after the shock rebound, silicon material dense material because of downstream replenishment began to raise prices, silicon chips, batteries with the rise. Although the small price increase does not change the general trend of price reduction, the profit improvement of the component segment is still very clear, and the loss of inventory price has been relatively controllable under the high turnover strategy.
“Looking forward to this year, it is still the supply bottleneck to determine the installed demand, considering that particles, high purity quartz sand have a certain supply elasticity, at the same time, the price of the industrial chain to stimulate the rhythm of demand is obvious.” The above researchers predicted that the global photovoltaic installed capacity is expected to reach 350-380 gigawatts this year, a year-on-year growth of more than 40%, and the strong fundamentals continue.
Bidding for projects is hot
Behind the “agitation” of the photovoltaic industry chain is the hot start of some major projects and the hot opening of large-scale bidding projects in the beginning of the year, which gives the industry the confidence to advance.
On January 11th, the largest single line production project of high-efficiency solar photovoltaic heterojunction cell (HJT structure) in China, the 5 gigawatt high-efficiency heterojunction cell project was launched in Danliang County, Meishan City. The project plans to invest 2.5 billion yuan in total, and is expected to be put into production by the end of August 2023.
Yang Wendong, executive vice president of the project, introduced that heterojunction battery technology is the most advanced third-generation N-type battery technology in the industry at present. It integrates the advantages of crystalline silicon battery and thin film battery, with high efficiency, low attenuation, high temperature resistance, high double-sided rate four characteristics, the future market demand space is huge. At present, the project has been included in Sichuan Province 2023 key projects, but also Meishan City to build 100 billion silicon photovoltaic industry key backbone project.
On January 27, the groundbreaking ceremony of the high efficiency heterojunction battery project of China Building Materials was held in Jiangyin Harbor Development Zone. It is reported that the project is invested by China Building Materials (Jiangyin) Photoelectric Material Technology Co., LTD., a subsidiary of China Construction Group, with a total investment of 5 billion yuan.
In the middle of last month, China Power Construction announced the opening results of a 26GW photovoltaic mega-tender. Due to the large amount of monomer, and silicon material, silicon chip prices plummeted, the profit space opened, the tender attracted more than 40 companies bid, it is unprecedented. In terms of quotation, there is a trend of polarization. Leading companies generally offer higher prices, while second – and third-tier companies compete at relatively lower prices. The average price (per watt) is 1.67-1.69 yuan for P-type components and 1.75 yuan for N-type components. The lowest price is 1.48 yuan, the highest price is more than 1.8 yuan for the P type and nearly 2 yuan for the N type.
In the view of the industry, the winning result of the large single will reflect the industry expectations. According to the current industrial chain price and industry cost dynamic calculation, for example, the large order of China Power Construction is delivered according to the average winning price. Compared with the current cost around 1.3 yuan/w, the excess profit of components is very considerable.
In addition, before the festival in the latest scenery project bidding, Dachang components have appeared the low price of 1.6 yuan/watt. According to the “125,000 kW / 500,000 KWH energy storage + 500,000 kw scenery in the same field project” of Changji Guodu County, 200,000 kW photovoltaic module procurement candidate publicity results show that Huansheng Photovoltaic (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. with a total offer of 438337536 yuan, the unit price of 1.68 yuan/watt became the first bid candidate. Trina Solar is the second candidate for the bid with a unit price of 1.6 yuan per watt.
Post time: Jan-30-2023