The online Global PV Market Trends seminar hosted by EnergyTrend of TrendForce alongside renowned businesses such as Risen Energy, Trina Solar, Growatt, Tongwei Solar, and Ginlong was successfully concluded in the afternoon of September 27th 2022.
Leading representatives and senior analysts of the PV industry were invited to the seminar to probe into areas that included the 2023 global PV market, supply and demand structure for each segment of the industry chain, and technical progresses. The seminar was streamed from multiple platforms in both Chinese and English, and had generated more than 1000 viewers.
TrendForce: Analysis of PV Policies and Demand for Global Regional Markets in 2023
He Wenhui, analyst of EnergyTrend, commented that module prices are lingering at a relatively high level owing to how the domestic and overseas pandemic status has been troubling the PV supply chain between 2021 and 2022, and global installation demand was impeded from a comprehensive release during 2022. Various countries, having seen the aggravating energy crisis in Europe, have been successively adjusting their strategies in energy development, and accelerating establishment of renewable energy.
Prices of each segment of the industry chain will return to the normal level amidst the significant release of expanded polysilicon capacity during 2023. New PV installation demand is expected to arrive at approximately 326GW under a YoY growth of 36% in 2023. China, USA, Brazil, India, and Germany are sequentially ranked as the top 5 countries with the largest installation demand, and occupy roughly 63.6% of the global demand.
Analysts of TrendForce also analyzed the four major regional markets, Asia-Pacific, Europe, America, and Middle East & Africa (MENA), and interpreted the main drivers for the growth of installation demand in respective markets, in the hope of rapid progression for the PV industry.
Comprehensively speaking, global PV installations would exhibit an expeditious growing trend in 2023, where key regional markets may decelerate in velocity, which mitigates the pressure of the supply chain, and gradually return to a rationally ascending demand in PV installations. Conclusions are as follows:
1. Risk of Global Economic Recession: global energy crisis triggered by geopolitics, together with the repeated outbreaks of COVID-19, are affecting various segments of the supply chain and downstream demand, and the magnified possibilities in a global economic recession are inducing uncertainties towards projections on current installation demand.
2. Impacts in individual regional markets: Europe may be the regional market that has sustained the most profound impact. The reduction of financial support due to various issues such as energy pressure and inflation is resulting a larger degree of impact for the European market in future PV installation demand amidst the declining global economy. In addition, uncertainties from geopolitics and presidential elections may also administer a certain extent of impact on the installation forecast for major global PV markets in the future.
TrendForce: Overview and Technical Prospects of Global PV Industry Chain in 2023
The PV industry is currently undergoing a crucial transition period, where the industry chain is seeing an incessant level of profitability and bargaining, and businesses of each segment are starting to exhibit seesaw competitions alongside iterations of technology. Zhou Yanhui, analyst of EnergyTrend, commented that TrendForce’s survey shows sufficiency in overall polysilicon provision during 2023, and will no longer be a bottleneck in restricting industry chain development.
Wafer businesses are entering a new round of expansion cycle between 2022 and 2023, where leading businesses are continuously enlarging capacity in order to solidify their advantages, while the accelerated progress among new players and second-tier businesses continue to bring down the capacity concentration of leading businesses, which resulted in an overall dispersed competition structure. The expansion of cell capacity remains focused on N-type products that will welcome a development phase and possibly a fast increase in market penetration afterwards. Among which, the core of focus is still the cost-performance value.
Capacity Ratio of Various Sized Wafers between 2020 and 2025 (Unit: %)
PV analysts of TrendForce have complied the following conclusions after thoroughly interpreting each segment of the industry chain:
1. Polysilicon: bottlenecks of polysilicon will be eliminated in 2023, and the gradually increasing output can bring down industry chain prices in an orderly fashion, as well as further stimulate installation demand from the end sector.
2. Wafers: the constrained supply of high-purity quartz sand is restricting crucible output, and is thus confining actual wafer output, which is why wafer cost may increase accordingly. As the large-size and thinning tendency becomes confirmative, the market share of large-sized wafers will exceed 90% in 2023, where the shortages of polysilicon and the obstinately high prices have also accelerated the propulsion of wafer thinning among businesses.
3. Cells: large-sized PERC cells may exhibit a tight balance between supply and demand during 2023 as the expansion of PERC capacity currently lingers at a suspended state. Main focuses would be the actual output and order visibility of TOPCon.
4. Films: the constrained supply of EVA particles will persist. POE particles primarily rely on imports, and the expedited development of N-type will trigger an increase in demand for POE films. POE particles will thus become even more confined in supply and demand.
Actual output under aforementioned predictions are capable of further increment from the simulation of higher prices.
Risen Energy: Development Trends in HJT Technology
Zhuang Yinghong, Global Market Director of Risen Energy, commented that the era of HJT has now arrived, and N-type technology will become a mainstream trend in the future amidst booming development. Risen Energy now occupies a leading position in HJT technology, and is adamant in a N-type technology map guided by HJT.
Risen Energy’s Hyper-ion module utilizes key technology such as thinning and low-silver slurry when implementing iteration and upgrade for HJT products in order to attain low degradation and high power generation, which further accomplished goals of ultra-high power and low LCOE. Risen Energy was ranked first in the annual shipment of HJT modules during 2021. In addition, Risen Energy’s relevant module products had attained a maximum power of 721.016W and an efficiency of more than 23.65% from TÜV’s power tests on December 15th 2021.
Trina Solar: Progress in Global Applications for 600W+ Ultra-High Modules
Modules have expedited in power increment amidst the constant development of the PV industry, and module products of current mainstream PV businesses have fully marched towards the 600W+ era. Chen Dong, Trina Solar’s Senior Manager of Product Management, shared at the seminar that almost all first and second-tier domestic and overseas PV module makers can now offer 600W+ products, with nearly fourty 600W+ module products of different technology and versions.
Module products of high power, high efficiency, high reliability, and high power generation are the core factors behind the continuous reduction of LCOE for PV. Trina Solar’s 600W+ high-power modules can simultaneously fulfill the four aforementioned factors, and have opened up a new channel in bringing down the LCOE of PV by a decrement of 1.9-4.1% in LCOE. Trina Solar had accumulated more than 100GW+ of module shipment around the world as of April 2022.
Growatt: Distributed Full-Scene Solutions to Help with Dual Carbon Target
Distributed PV is advantageous in adaptation to local conditions, clean and high efficiency, dispersed deployment, and nearby utilization. Coupling with the policy support from various countries, the global development of distributed PV has been constantly ascending to new levels, where the quantity of corresponding products used for residential, industrial, and commercial scenarios are likely to welcome a rapid growth. Growatt continues to grow in large margin for the shipment of its PV and energy storage inverters, and was ranked at 3rd place in global PV inverter shipment, as well as 1st place in global residential PV inverter shipment, during 2021.
Yuan Zhimin, Product Director of Growatt, commented that the company, in the midst of numerous challenges encountered by the distributed PV industry, such as complicated application scenarios, high requirements in system security, as well as difficult operation and maintenance, will be offering full-scene PV + energy storage solutions that will provide safe and reliable products for residential PV grid-connected systems, and compatible products for various public buildings and industrial & commercial power stations, in order to exert the company’s localized advantages in a more economic, reliable, and convenient manner that will help attain the dual carbon target in advance.
Tongwei Solar: Interpretation in Key Technology of Shingled Modules
Yin Haibin, Manager of Shingled Products of Tongwei Solar, probed into the advantages of shingled module technology at the seminar. Yin commented that Tongwei’s shingled modules are high in conversion efficiency, low in degradation, and large in single module capacity, where additional cells are placed within the confined space of products to elevate efficiency effectively. Tongwei’s shingled 5C module can be adjusted according to different application markets, and can now be mass produced at 555W, whereas the lossless laser cutting technology would also smoothen cell surface that will continuously reduce current losses.
Yin also claimed that Tongwei will be releasing the 210 N-type products during the second half of 2022, as well as actively deploying in capacity for high-efficiency modules. PV is becoming increasingly important in daily power supply, and China-made high-efficiency modules are now equipped with a much stronger degree of international competitiveness owing to advantages such as large increment of efficiency, reduction of cost, and relatively matured technical development. We believe that the progression of the PV industry is of considerable significance towards human civilization in the future.
Seminar Video Playback and Information Sharing
Copy and paste the following link if you missed out on the streaming or would like to watch the seminar again:
https://wx.vzan.com/live/page/ 1ABDDAE856F256815CFA4242BC9AC9 60?topicid=293667090&v= 1664433922246
For more information, please contact:
Gino Tang
Tel: 15013698112 (WeChat)
Email: ginotang@trendforce.cn