In the current era of rapid technological development, there are always some companies that fail to grasp the pulse of the times and fall in a timely manner, of course, there will also be emerging companies with keen insight into technology trends and wise choices, quickly emerging and achieving amazing rise.
"If you don't seek change, you will be eliminated", the market always welcomes competitors with strength, this law has been vividly interpreted in the magnificent course of photovoltaic for more than 20 years.
Three changes in the pattern under technological iteration
Throughout the history of the development of the photovoltaic industry, it is a history of technological change, and each round of technological change and evolution is like a profound baptism, which not only reshapes the original competitive pattern, but also gives birth to new industry leaders.
Back in 2008, when Wuxi Suntech, Yingli, LDK and other photovoltaic giants successively set sail overseas and were successfully listed, China's photovoltaic industry has nearly 1,000, accounting for half of the world's photovoltaic industry.
However, behind this seeming prosperity, there are hidden dangers of "three ends outside", especially polysilicon, whose price once soared from US$45/kg to US$500/kg, making domestic enterprises once fall into the dilemma of high cost and low profit.
The turning point came in 2009, when GCL-Poly decisively introduced the cold hydrogenation process, which reduced the unit power consumption of polysilicon from more than 150 kWh/kg to about 60 kWh/kg, which promoted the cold hydrogenation process to become a common process in the whole industry.
With this technological breakthrough, GCL Technology defeated the German polysilicon hegemon Wacker AG and won a quarter of the global market share in one fell swoop, becoming the world's largest polysilicon producer.
In 2013, the technological change in the photovoltaic field made waves again. In this wave of technological change, the two technical routes of monocrystalline and polycrystalline have become the main battlefield for major photovoltaic giants to compete for market share and technical strength.
In 2014, LONGi took the lead in overcoming the industrialization problem of RCZ monocrystalline growth technology, and broke the monopoly of overseas manufacturers on diamond wire technology in one fell swoop. In 2019, the market share of mono-Si wafers surpassed that of multi-Si wafers for the first time, completely laying the foundation for mono-Si to lead the industry.
As we all know, in this tug-of-war for monocrystalline and multi-Si technologies, the industry landscape has been rewritten again, and LONGi, as the main promoter, has become the new industry leader.
Entering 2020, the photovoltaic industry has entered a new round of technology iteration. At the crossroads of P-shaped to N-shaped transformation, which technology can stand out and become the next generation of technology, and which company can rise to become a new industry leader with excellent technical strength and market insight? All this seems to be full of unknowns and suspense.
Who is the next generation of "hegemons"?
Looking back on the past two years, TOPCon, HJT, and XBC have all had supporters, but it is undeniable that in terms of the progress of various technical routes, n-TOPCon battery technology has achieved the first breakthrough.
This trend is intuitively reflected in the market share. According to the analysis of third-party consulting institutions, by the end of 2023, TOPCon cell production capacity has reached 560GW, with a market share of about 24%, and its market share is expected to jump to about 85% by 2024.
With TOPCon becoming the mainstream technology route, the competitive landscape of the PV industry has also ushered in new changes, and a new qualifying competition has begun.
Among them, JinkoSolar is a well-deserved leader in TOPCon. As early as 2022, when many companies were still on the fence about new technologies, JinkoSolar had decisively bet on TOPCon technology and poured a lot of resources into R&D and mass production. To date, JinkoSolar holds more than 330 TOPCon patents, making it one of the companies with the largest number of TOPCon technology patents.
JA Solar, which is also one of the four giants, also began to work on TOPCon technology research and development as early as 2013, and in Q2 2022, JA Solar's TOPCon cells achieved mass production, and in the same year, the first n-type module - DeepBlue 4.0 X was launched, and the latest n-type product, DeepBlue 4.0 Pro, has refreshed the maximum module power to 635W, and the module efficiency has reached 22.8%.
CHINT New Energy, which was spun off from CHINT New Energy, has been lightly loaded, and its speed of development in the N-type layout is also eye-catching. In April 2022, CHINT Xinneng released the new ASTRO series of TOPCon modules, and in July, the TOPCon cell and module products of the Haining base rolled off the production line...... By the end of 2023, CHINT will have 53GW of cell production capacity and 55GW of module capacity, of which TOPCon accounts for 81%.
In addition, those who have also benefited from TOPCon's high growth and ranked among the top of the industry list are a number of emerging companies such as Yiyi Xinneng and Zhongqing Photovoltaic.
Since its establishment, Yiyi Xinneng has focused on the direction of TOPCon technology, established the first TOPCon product R&D production line in China, and has created a world record of open-circuit voltage and conversion efficiency of large-area TOPCon cells for three consecutive times in 8 months, and the efficiency of mass production of TOPCon 4.0 plus high-efficiency cells has exceeded 26.55%.
In just three years, Zhongqing PV has broken into the global module shipment list and ranked first in the TOPCon field. Behind the rapid rise of Zhongqing PV, first, its core team has accumulated deep experience in the photovoltaic field, and the launch of the "Pioneer Series" product matrix perfectly meets the market demand. Second, the production capacity has increased rapidly, with seven manufacturing bases across the country, with cell and module production capacity planning reaching 83GW and 39GW respectively, and 11GW of cell and 17GW module production capacity has been successfully put into operation.
With efficient products and large-scale growth of production capacity, Zhongqing PV has quickly established in-depth and close cooperative relations with major central and state-owned enterprises, and has only cooperated with, which has exceeded 2GW so far in 2023.
Obviously, in the midst of technological change, companies betting on TOPCon seem to have achieved a temporary lead and become a strong contender for the next generation of "hegemon". However, different technical routes meet in a narrow way, and the winner is still not distinguished, and it still takes time to verify who can win and who will be eliminated in this gradual white-hot competition.