The penetration rate of TOPCon is increasing rapidly, and it is expected that the proportion will be close to 6% in 2024. With the continuous promotion of cost reduction and efficiency improvement, TOPCon has been rapidly promoted in the field of domestic ground stations by virtue of its economic benefits: 2022 is the first year of TOPCon, and the proportion of TOPCon tenders in the first quarter of that year is relatively low, about 13%. The penetration rate of TOPCon is about 31% of the 39GW bidding projects included in the statistics in the second quarter of 2023, and this proportion has increased significantly to 74% in the tenders of about 90GW power plants as of the fourth quarter of 2023. Considering that most of the tenders in the fourth quarter correspond to the installed capacity of domestic centralized power stations in 2024, and the centralized procurement of domestic power stations has a certain guidance for the application of various regions, we expect that the global TOPCon penetration rate is expected to be close to 6% in 2024.
TOPCon has a strong differentiation, and high-efficiency TOPCon cell cells may face a tight supply and demand situation. Previously, the market often compared TOPCon with PERC, believing that there was no difference between the two. After more than a year of verification, many TOPCon projects have been delayed or canceled. Additionally, TOPCon products also have certain differences in efficiency and yield. It is expected that these differences will be reflected in costs (a 1% yield difference corresponds to a cost difference of about 0.2-0.3 cents/w and a 0.1% efficiency difference corresponds to a cost difference of about 0.1 yuan/watt).
Currently, TOPCon cell technology is still evolving. Following LECO, micro-innovative technologies such as 0bb and ficial Poly are expected to be applied. While there is room for technological progress in the industry, we anticipate that TOPCon will continue to show strong differentiation. With the increase in demand and penetration rate of high-efficiency TOPCon cell cells, there may be a tight supply and demand situation.
TOPCon has a lot of room for profit recovery. At present, the operating rate of traditional perc production capacity is less than 3%, which is in a state of large loss, and TOPCon is only in a state of small profit. Considering the differences between TOPCon products and the delay of some projects, it is expected that the overall supply and demand of TOPCon will be relatively orderly, and there may be a lot of room for TOPCon cell profitability to recover.
Source：CMS