On April 25, 1954, exactly 70 years ago, Bell Labs in the United States announced the development of crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic cells with a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 6% in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and demonstrated it through electrical appliances such as radio transmitters at that time. The New York Times ran a front-page story the next day, calling the invention a "modern-day version of the Apollo chariot" and arguing that "it could mark the beginning of a new era in which humanity's dream of harnessing the infinite power of the sun could be realized." It is also the birth of this battery that makes it possible for people to directly use solar energy to obtain electricity in real life, thus opening the curtain of large-scale and industrialized development of photovoltaics.
The New York Times published an article on April 26, 1954
From off-grid "spare tire" to "double carbon light"
As early as 1839, the 19-year-old Frenchman Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel stumbled upon the phenomenon of electric current when metal materials are exposed to light, which is now known as the "Photovoltaic Effect". In the 70s and 80s of the 19th century, the photovoltaic effect of selenium was discovered, and the first selenium solar cell was born, and in the following 60 years, the photovoltaic effect of copper and cuprous oxide, cadmium sulfide, etc. was also discovered one after another, but the highest conversion efficiency of the cell invented was only about 1%, far from reaching the application level.
In 1940, Russell Shoemaker Ohl, a semiconductor researcher at Bell Labs, discovered the photovoltaic effect of silicon, but the initial photoelectric conversion efficiency was less than 1%. After that, magnetic materials engineer Daryl Chapin, chemist Calvin Fuller and physicist Gerald Pearson cooperated to develop crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic cells, and by the early 1950s, their photoelectric conversion efficiency had exceeded 2% and 4%, much higher than that of solar cells made of other materials at that time. By 1954, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon cells had increased to 6%, making it possible to put them into commercial applications. On this basis, the trio officially published the relevant results in academic journals, and Bell Labs also applied for a patent for the invention and held the aforementioned press conference, which attracted people's attention.
贝尔实验室的三名科学家：Daryl Chapin、Calvin Fuller和Gerald Pearson
Since then, from the perspective of pure conversion efficiency, crystalline silicon cells have made rapid progress, reaching 9% in 1955 and exceeding 14% in 1960. However, limited by the cost, support, applicable scenarios and other issues, its application scale has been small, at the beginning it was mostly used for communication satellites, marine navigation equipment, lighthouses and other off-grid electricity scenarios, but also included some off-grid homes and solar radios, calculators and other electronic products with less power. Paradoxically, for a long time, it seems that oil and gas companies that are "singing the same game" with clean energy such as photovoltaic and wind power are also major customers of photovoltaic products, and their main application scenario is navigation lighting for offshore drilling platforms, and oil and gas giants such as ExxonMobil have even developed their own photovoltaic cell products. However, in general, most of these commercial scenarios are far away from people's ordinary lives, and the "niche" state also makes it difficult for the scale of the photovoltaic industry to expand rapidly.
The first major turning point came in the 1970s. In 1973, the fourth Middle East war broke out, OPEC imposed an oil embargo, resulting in the first oil crisis, international oil prices soared 3-4 times, at that time most of the developed countries were large oil consumers, and therefore under great pressure, nuclear energy, solar energy and other alternative energy sources were highly valued. The "Independence Plan", "Bulk Purchase Program" and "Photovoltaic R&D Act" in the United States, the "Sunshine Plan" in Japan, and the energy transition in Europe have all stimulated the surge of photovoltaic production, and it has gradually entered the civilian field. In 1973, the University of Delaware built the world's first photovoltaic residence, and in 1979, the total number of solar cell installations worldwide exceeded 1MW. However, after all, photovoltaic power generation has obvious intermittent and fluctuating characteristics, and the power grid and energy storage technology at that time are difficult to support centralized large-scale photovoltaic grid-connected power generation, so until the 21st century photovoltaic enters the era of industrialization development, its civil power generation applications are still mostly off-grid scenarios, such as the "bright project" promoted by the mainland in 1997, which is to "send electricity to the township" through the construction of photovoltaic and wind power to solve the electricity problem of 30 million people in rural areas without electricity.
Moreover, in the second half of the 20th century, the "spare tire" attribute of photovoltaic is also more obvious, as long as there is an oil crisis, nuclear energy safety accidents, photovoltaic will be paid attention to in the short term, related problems, anxiety has been alleviated, and the development of photovoltaic will fall into a dormant or even low tide. However, after the 1990s, the situation gradually changed, and another important turning point gradually brewed, that is, the climate crisis and ecological problems became prominent, making carbon reduction, emission reduction, and energy transition gradually necessary. Key milestones include the signing of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997, the introduction of renewable energy laws, energy transition plans, net-zero emission schedules and roadmaps, the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016, and the proposal of a 1.5 degree Celsius target. Just last year, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the Group of 20 (G20), the Sino-US Sunshine Land Statement, COP28 and other international organizations and conferences emphasized the goal of "tripling the global installed capacity of renewable energy by 2030", in the relevant planning, the volume of renewable energy will reach about 11,000GW, and photovoltaic will reach 5,457GW, accounting for half of the country.
China, the United States, Germany, and Japan's "Romance of the Four Kingdoms"
In the early 1990s, the annual output of global photovoltaic cells exceeded 50MW, and by 1997, the annual output exceeded 100 MW for the first time, basically growing steadily at an average annual level of 10MW. Since then, the output in 2000 was close to 400MW, in 2002 it exceeded 500MW, and in 2004 it broke through to the GW level in one fell swoop, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 50%.
Throughout the development of photovoltaic in the 21st century, Japan, Germany, and China have all held the highest installed photovoltaic capacity in the world, the United States has never fallen out of the TOP5, Spain and Italy have experienced "explosive" growth in photovoltaic installations, and India has come from behind, ranking fifth on the list since 2018.
When it comes to the importance and promotion of the upstream and downstream development of photovoltaics, China, Germany, the United States and Japan are undoubtedly in the first camp. According to the data of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in 2004, Japan led the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaics, followed by Germany, the United States and China, and in 2023, nearly 20 years have passed, China has jumped to the top of the list by a huge margin, and the United States, Japan and Germany are ranked 2nd, 3rd and 4th respectively, during this period, except for China from 2008 to 2011, when it was briefly replaced by Italy and Spain, all other years, these four countries have not fallen out of the top five in the installed capacity list.
The data comes from IRENA, which is mapped by Titanium Media APP
Among the four countries, Japan on the eve of the outbreak of the industry to accumulate the greatest advantage, the country began to implement the "Sunshine Plan" in the 1970s, in the early 1980s will be photovoltaic as the focus of energy planning, related research and development, manufacturing, application and so on have been strongly supported by the government, in the 1990s also introduced the "Thousand Roof Plan" to promote photovoltaic power generation, Japanese giants Toshiba, Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp, etc. have played an important role in the photovoltaic industry chain. By 2000, Japan was not only the world's largest market in terms of installed capacity, as mentioned above, but also accounted for more than 40% of the world's photovoltaic cell production capacity. However, the explosion of photovoltaic in the 21st century is mainly due to the surge in installed capacity under the policy subsidies of various countries and the cost reduction and efficiency improvement of crystalline silicon routes, while Japan's photovoltaic has encountered the encirclement and interception of power giants on the eve of the industrial outbreak, and the "thousand roof" subsidy ended in 2005; Except for a brief recovery after the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, Japan's PV growth potential has been far inferior to that of Germany and China for most of the time.
The starting point of Germany's photovoltaic development is more special, the main driving force comes from the people's anti-nuclear movement, climate change, partisan games, etc., and its "benchmark electricity price" implemented in the 1990s is one of the most important policies in the history of photovoltaic development, balancing the development of new energy and traditional energy, the interests of the power grid at the same time, to provide photovoltaic enterprises with great power to reduce costs and increase efficiency and profit margins. In 2000, Germany introduced the Renewable Energy Act, which further strengthened subsidies and related plans, and renewable energy with photovoltaic and wind power as the core has also become a long-term choice for investors. From technology research and development, manufacturing to installation, Germany played an important role in the era of photovoltaic explosion that began in 2004, and in 2005 its total photovoltaic installed capacity jumped to the first place in the world, until 2015, when it was surpassed by China, which entered the outbreak mode, it was significantly ahead of the second place. However, from the perspective of growth rate, after 2008, the German photovoltaic industry has gradually entered a low ebb, mainly affected by the global financial crisis, the European debt crisis, the 2010 "photovoltaic bill" greatly reduced the power generation subsidies, the downstream market weakened, the midstream manufacturing enterprises are under pressure inside and outside, Q-Cells, Solon and other landmark enterprises have gone bankrupt, and Solar World, which has worked closely with Chinese enterprises, has also "backstabbed" Chinese enterprises, prompting the EU to conduct a "double anti-dumping" investigation on Chinese photovoltaics. However, since the 2010s, the obvious weakness of German photovoltaic and the rapid rise of China's photovoltaic have become the manifestation of the industry's "rise in the east and fall in the west".
As the birthplace of practical photovoltaic cells and the earliest country to carry out commercial application, the development of the photovoltaic industry in the United States has been the most tortuous, mainly because the policy "changes face" or even "turns face" too fast. As far as Nixon's PV development was ended by Reagan's "PV retreat", and as recently as Obama's "Clean Energy Recovery Strategy", Trump's shale oil revolution and Biden's Green New Deal alternately, the US PV industry has always faced large fluctuations from installation to manufacturing. From the current point of view, after Biden took office, the United States PV has indeed entered a period of rapid growth, with an average annual growth rate of more than 30% in the past four years, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022 has given birth to an explosive growth in local manufacturing capacity, and its local module production capacity will increase by more than 60% annually in 2023 According to the current plan, its module production capacity may reach 120GW by 2026, nearly 10 times the current level, and the production capacity of the whole industry chain is more likely to surge to 230GW. However, political uncertainty still plagues the United States, and many believe that if Trump wins this year's election, the development of new energy in the United States will once again encounter headwinds. Wood Mackenzie has predicted that the planned module production capacity in the United States may face great variables in the implementation process, and it is expected that only 48% of it will actually reach production by 2026.
In the current global photovoltaic industry pattern, from the manufacturing end to the market side, China is in the C position, and its stock and increment are also significantly ahead of other countries, and in addition to policy support, the international environment and other backgrounds, this status quo is largely due to the rapid iteration of photovoltaic technology and the continuous decline in costs.
The road to technology upgrading and cost reduction
From the starting point of view, the mainland's attention to photovoltaic cells is not too late, in 1958 the first silicon single crystal was developed, in 1973 for the first time to achieve the domestic photovoltaic power generation ground application, in 1974 to formulate a ten-year plan for the development of solar energy science and technology, some state-owned photovoltaic device factories were also established at this time. In the early 80s, renewable energy and energy technology were included in the national five-year plan, and photovoltaic moved from the laboratory stage to the stage of large-scale production capacity, and by the end of the 80s, the photovoltaic cell production capacity was increased to MW level. In the 90s, the mainland's market-oriented reform was further deepened, and the climate issue became the focus of international attention, the concept of sustainable development was valued, and the development of clean energy in the mainland also accelerated. By the beginning of the 21st century, the mainland photovoltaic manufacturing industry has entered a period of large-scale development, and Wuxi Suntech, Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, LDK and other enterprises have gradually become the protagonists of the global photovoltaic industry chain. However, at that time, most of the products produced in the mainland were sold to overseas markets mainly in Europe and the United States, and the domestic downstream demand was not yet a climate relative to the scale of the manufacturing industry, until 2010, the cumulative installed capacity of the mainland photovoltaic exceeded 1GW, and the production capacity of Wuxi Suntech was not as high as that of an enterprise in Wuxi at that time, and the total installed capacity of Germany had exceeded 18GW, due to the outbreak of the European market, the mainland ranked from the top five to the ninth in the world.
However, since 2011, due to the "devastating" blow of the European and American "double anti-dumping" to the mainland photovoltaic overseas market and the domestic "Golden Sun" project, the benchmark electricity price subsidy policy, the "Several Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Healthy Development of the Photovoltaic Industry" and other supporting policies have been introduced, the mainland domestic market has entered an explosive stage of development, and the cumulative installed capacity in 2013 exceeded 10GW in one fell swoop, an increase of more than 60 times compared with 2009, and then surpassed Germany to become the world's largest photovoltaic installed country. Since then, although it has experienced the second round of ups and downs such as the "double reversal" and the 531 New Deal, on the whole, the mainland photovoltaic manufacturing and market are running at a speed far exceeding that of other countries. Especially after entering the 2020s, on a high base, the average annual growth rate of new photovoltaic installations in mainland China exceeded 70%, and the cumulative installed capacity in three years increased by 14 times, and by the end of 2023, the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic in mainland China reached 609.5GW, accounting for 21% of the total installed power capacity, surpassing hydropower to become the second largest power source after coal power, of which 216.88GW will be added in a single year in 2023, with a year-on-year growth rate of 148.1%. In terms of manufacturing, the output of the four main materials of polysilicon, silicon wafers, cells and modules in mainland China accounts for more than 8% of the world's total, and it also has super strength in the fields of inverters, auxiliary materials and auxiliary materials, and photovoltaic equipment.
Among the rapid developments mentioned above, the iteration of photovoltaic technology and the reduction of costs are the most eye-catching. In terms of technology, according to the data collected by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the United States, the highest photoelectric conversion efficiency of the current multi-junction cell laboratory was created by the Fraunhofer Institute, which has reached 47.6%, which is equivalent to 7.93 times that of the Bell Labs battery in 1954, while the highest conversion efficiency of the multi-junction cell is 33.9% of the crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem cell created by the mainland company LONGi Green Energy in November last year. In terms of mass production conversion efficiency, the N-type cells of the leading enterprises in mainland China are also more than 25.5%, which continues to strengthen the economy and practicability of photovoltaic power generation. At present, photovoltaic manufacturing is experiencing an "N-type revolution", a new generation of batteries with higher efficiency is gradually replacing the mainstream "P-type battery" in the market, and the leading enterprises in the mainland will invest a lot of R&D expenses every year to develop N-type cell technologies such as TOPCon, HJT or BC, and have also carried out forward-looking layout in the next-generation technologies such as perovskite, and the road of photovoltaic technology iteration continues.
Records of the conversion efficiency of various types of photovoltaic cells, pictures from NREL
In terms of power generation costs, according to the calculations in the book "Big Power Photovoltaic", the LCOE of the first photovoltaic power generation system in the 1950s was as high as 300 US dollars, and the current minimum electricity price has dropped to 0.0104 US dollars/ kWh (1.04 cents, from the winning bid price of a PV project in Saudi Arabia in April 2021) is only 1/30,000th of the initial level, and the minimum PV price in mainland China has also dropped to less than 0.15 yuan (less than 2 cents), compared with itself, the cost of PV power generation in the mainland has fallen by more than 90% in 20 years. The cost reduction of global photovoltaic power generation is not only driven by policy innovations such as "benchmark electricity prices" and related industrial support measures in various countries, but also related to the changes in polysilicon prices and wafer sizes, and the rapid progress of technology, the follow-up of supporting facilities, and the coordinated development of industrial and supply chains to form scale effects play an important role. Taking Continental as an example, from modules, cells to silicon wafers, to polysilicon materials with higher technical difficulties and once "stuck", as well as inverters, brackets, auxiliary materials, In the 21st century, the localization of photovoltaic equipment and other power chains has greatly reduced the cost of supply chain and terminal power generation, and power grid technologies such as UHV have also supported the long-distance transmission and overall power generation cost of photovoltaics, which has allowed the mainland to officially enter the era of photovoltaic parity in the 2020s, and has won more support and recognition for the economic feasibility of replacing fossil fuels with new energy.
The cost of photovoltaic power generation in various countries since 2010, picture from IRENA
As the "leader" of today's new energy, the development of photovoltaic can be described as exciting, in the energy transition, climate change forum, conference, photovoltaic cost reduction and industrialization development is always cited as a classic case. However, at present, there are many difficulties in this field, such as the growth rate of the proportion of power generation is far inferior to the proportion of installed capacity, the risk of fierce expansion competition and price war on the manufacturing side, the progress of long-term energy storage technology is less than expected, and the obstacles caused by changes in the global political and economic and trade pattern. And in 2023, according to the statistics of the World Meteorological Organization, human beings have just experienced the hottest year in history, the average temperature has been about 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial baseline, and in 2024 it is very likely to break through the warning line of 1.5 degrees Celsius. (This article was first published on Titanium Media APP, author|Hu Jiameng, editor|Liu Yangxue)
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