In 2019, China has come to the era of grid parity; all aspects of the PV industry chain still need continuous technological innovation to further reduce LCOE. At present, silicon crystal growth technology and silicon wafers are undergoing major changes.
For monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si), on the one hand, high-efficiency mono-Si cell technology puts forward higher requirements for mono-Si materials, and mono-Si materials need to be further upgraded to higher purity, reduced oxygen and carbon content, and optimized thermal history; On the other hand, monocrystal pulling ingot technology is transitioning from Recharged Czochralski (RCz) to Continuous Czocharlski (CCz). CCz technology can effectively reduce the time, cost and energy consumption of monocrystal pulling, and the ingot has a more uniform and narrower distribution of resistivity, and has higher quality, is more suitable for high-efficiency PERC and N-type mono cells. CZ puller can be upgrade into CCz. Longi has officially completed the research and development of CCz high-efficiency mono products and has the mass production capacity.
Multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) casting technology is ushering new application – casting mono-Si. Casting mono-Si combines the casting advantages of low cost, low energy consumption, large size and mono-Si advantages of high efficiency and high quality, and is an important development direction of silicon crystal manufacturing. Compared with cz mono-Si, casting mono-Si has a more concentrated resistivity distribution, a lower oxygen content, and a high adaptation for PERC solar cell. At the same time, casting mono-Si also face challenges such as high dislocation density, mono-Si ratio, seed crystal cost and material utilization. GCL-Poly has successfully launched a new generation of casting mono-Si products, which capacity is expected to reach 8-10GW in 2019. The high-performance casting mono-Si P5 module of CSI also began to be shipped in 2019.
At the silicon wafer end, large size is becoming the industry trend. Large size wafer can increase the output of cell and module production lines, reduce the production cost per watt, increase the module power and conversion efficiency, and help PV industry enter the 4.0 era. At present, the size of silicon wafers on the market is diversified, which brings inconvenience to the application and management of the industrial chain. The size standards of silicon wafers are being actively formulated. It is expected that 2019 will be the first year of development of 166mm wafer, and 158.75mm is expected to become the mainstream size. In 2020, the market share of large-size silicon wafers will exceed 50%.
2nd Silicon Crystal Growth and Large Wafer Technology Forum 2019 will be held on September 19 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. The conference will discuss the PV industry prospects and mono and multi wafer market analysis, optimization and development prospects of Cz mono-Si, casting mc-Si and casting mono-Si, CCz technology advantages and capacity outlook, and casting mono-Si competitiveness analysis and application progress, large-size wafer assists module 4.0 era, silicon wafer size standardization and development trends, silicon crystal growth advanced equipment, high-performance auxiliary materials and characterization technology.
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