Guide: As far as the driving force of the whole industry is concerned, in the new cycle of “non-subsidy”, the eternal theme of the photovoltaic industry will be mentioned as a more prominent position, and high-efficiency solar cells will undoubtedly become the new engine of this process. On the contrary, traditional solar cell capacity will face the fate of being quickly eliminated by the market.

Although the "531 New Deal" was promulgated less than a month ago, the expected shocks have spread all the way from the beginning of this month. Most of the provinces and cities have stopped filing new projects for the initial period, and then a large number of power station owners cancel solar module orders and then go to market-level components. The price of solar cells has fallen, and at the enterprise level, there is no help in paying layoffs. Compared with any previous stage of winter, the impact of the “531 New Deal” on China's PV industry will be more lasting and far-reaching. Starting from this, the entire industry has entered the new cycle of “no subsidies” ahead of schedule.

The OFweek Industrial Research Institute believes that, looking at the development process of China's photovoltaic industry, from the initial two ends, it is difficult to survive in the cracks, to the domestic market is gradually opened, the benchmark electricity price is gradually improved,  China's photovoltaic industry, both in terms of manufacturing and application, has occupied the leading position in the industry in a short period of time. It is undeniable that many PV companies, especially private enterprises, have made outstanding contributions. So when regulators treat the industry in such a way, companies have reason to be frustrated. But when the implementation and implementation of the New Deal has become a reality and irreversible, no matter which industry chain the enterprise is in, from a strategic perspective, in the new cycle of “unsubsidized” era, we should start from our own situation and build core competitiveness. In the past, any enterprise can cross the border, and the downstream application side will be heavily deployed. The era of relying on subsidies to maintain high profits will never return.

As far as the driving force of the whole industry is concerned, in the new cycle of “non-subsidy”, the eternal theme of the photovoltaic industry will be mentioned as a more prominent position, and high-efficiency solar cells will undoubtedly become the new engine of this process. On the contrary, traditional solar cell capacity will face the fate of being quickly eliminated by the market.

So what is the current status and development prospects of high-efficiency solar cells? The latest release of the 2018 High-Efficiency Solar Cell Technology Analysis and Forecast Report from the OFweek Industrial Research Institute has detailed explanations and forecasts.

First and foremost is the current PERC solar cell that is hot in the market. At the end of 2017, the production capacity of monocrystalline silicon wafers exceeded 44GW, and it is expected to exceed 60GW in 2018. The production capacity of polycrystalline silicon wafers will exceed 90GW by the end of 2017. It is expected to increase to 110GW in 2018, and the proportion of polycrystalline crystals will continue to decline. Among them, Longji's production capacity of monocrystalline silicon wafers will reach 25GW at the end of 2018, and Central will reach 23GW, showing a double giant situation. Downstream of the silicon wafer, the industry leaders have launched high-efficiency solar cell/solar module expansion plans, and monocrystalline solar cell expansion is mainly based on single crystal PERC.

At the end of 2017, the global mono PERC solar cell capacity exceeds 30GW. According to the current expansion plan, it is expected to reach 60GW by the end of 2018. Upstream capacity follow-up will further drive the price reduction of monocrystalline silicon wafers and high-efficiency solar panels, and the economic benefits of using high-efficiency solar modules will become more apparent.

As far as the market prospect is concerned, at present, the production efficiency of monocrystalline PERC solar cells generally reaches 21-21.5%, and polycrystalline solar cell reach 20-20.5%. The highest conversion efficiencies of industrial large-area monocrystalline PERC and polycrystalline PERC solar cells reached 22.6% and 21.63%, respectively. PERC solar cells also have a lot of room for efficiency improvement, and there is room for optimization of the emitter, back aluminum back field, main grid, and wafer quality. It is expected that in 2025, monocrystalline PERC solar cells can achieve conversion efficiency of up to 24%, and the market share will be further improved. With the advancement of technology, the maturity of the double-sided PERC process not only broadens the application scenarios of the PERC solar cell, but also achieves higher power generation gain.

From a cost perspective, compared to PERC single-sided products, PERC double-sided products have only been adjusted and optimized in the screen printing process of solar cells, so the cost is basically the same as PERC single-sided products. Compared with conventional mono/polycrystalline and PERC monocrystalline, P-type PERC double-sided modules can effectively reduce the LCOE of photovoltaic power plants. For example, a double-sided module with 10% power generation gain can reduce LCOE by more than 0.05 yuan/kWh. Face products can accelerate the price of photovoltaics to the Internet. It is expected that in the next 2-3 years, PERC technology should be difficult to be impacted by other high-efficiency technologies, especially for double-sided PERC products. After 1 year of application-side verification, it will enter the market in the second half of 2018.

Secondly, the HIT solar cell that is expected to be the latecomer, the domestic HIT solar cell has formed a capacity of 1GW in 2017, but the output is limited, only 60MW, the average conversion efficiency is 22.7%. It is expected that the 2018 will usher in the first year of heterogeneous development, 2018 The annual planned production capacity will be 2.5GW and the total production capacity will reach 3.5GW.

According to the data from the OFweek Industrial Research Institute, in terms of mass production, of course, Sanyo, Japan, has an existing capacity of 1 GW and a mass production efficiency of 23%. In addition, there are more mature HIT technologies such as Keneka, Sunpreme, Solarcity, Fujian Junshi, Jinneng, Zhongzhi (Taixing), Hanergy and other enterprises.

As far as the market prospect is concerned, after the PERC solar cell has become a hot spot in the industry, HIT solar cell technology has broken through at the beginning, and the cost performance advantage has begun to appear. The future will be the era of P-type PERC solar cell and N-type HIT solar cell for the photovoltaic industry.

HIT's biggest obstacle at present is that the key equipment is to achieve localization, but the Chinese manufacturing 2025 supports China's equipment manufacturing industry. We can see that in the short-term future, we will continue to obtain more remarkable breakthroughs in the field of equipment manufacturing. It is the only way for China's rise. This is the general direction of China's development. In terms of HIT equipment, we will break through and not wait too long.