With the advent of the era of photovoltaic "super involution", can the profitability of enterprises still be expected?

"The development of the photovoltaic industry this year, in terms of new installed capacity, is in line with expectations, but from the perspective of the healthy development of the industry, it is not up to expectations. Since the second half of the year, the photovoltaic industry chain has changed very rapidly, which poses a huge challenge to all photovoltaic enterprises. ”

On November 27, at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Shanghai Summit, Qu Xiaohua, chairman of Canadian Solar 688472.SH, said.

The photovoltaic industry chain has undergone tremendous changes this year. The price of polysilicon has fallen below 60,000 yuan/ton, and the bidding price of modules has fallen below 1 yuan/W.

"From now on, PV will enter the 'strongest involution in history', and next year don't expect PV to have a particularly high profitability per watt. Qu Xiaohua said.

Gao Jifan, chairman of Trina Solar, believes that the decline in module prices is beneficial to the industry because it can promote market expansion, but it is harmful for module prices to fall too quickly.

"Within a year, module prices have dropped from 2 yuan/W to 1 yuan/W or even lower, which is problematic. Gao Jifan said that in this case, the industrial chain has no profit and cannot be sustained. This year, the industry still has the inertia of rapid expansion of production capacity "rushing forward", and then a new round of adjustment or reshuffle may occur, if the industrial chain has not been profitable, it is impossible to continue to develop.

"Next year, the production capacity of leading enterprises will increase faster than the average growth rate of the market, and the market share of leading enterprises will definitely come back, squeezing other enterprises. Gao Jifan said.

He said that there is a certain pessimism about the development of the current photovoltaic industry, which not only depends on the survival of the fittest in the market, but also needs to give full play to the adjustment ability of government departments.

Lu Chuan, chairman of Chint New Energy, also believes that the new installed capacity of global photovoltaic this year has exceeded expectations compared with the beginning of the year, especially in the Chinese market. However, the specific shipments of some companies are slightly lower than the plan at the beginning of the year. The main reasons include, first, seasonal fluctuations, especially in the first two quarters of this year, the European market has accumulated a certain amount of inventory, which makes the global channel customers have a significant impairment when shipping, slowing down the follow-up shipments;

At the Q3 results briefing, LONGi Green Energy (601012.SH), the leader of the PV industry, lowered its full-year sales target, expecting module shipments to be 85% of its plan at the beginning of the year, but JinkoSolar (688223.SH) stressed that its full-year shipment certainty is strong and confident that it will achieve its target of 70-75GW.

"There will be some pressure on the growth rate of the industry next year, which is not as good as this year, and may be around 20%-30%. JinkoSolar Chairman Li Xiande said. However, he is not so pessimistic about corporate profit performance, "Even if the module price drops to 1 yuan/W, there are still good profit opportunities for integrated enterprises and enterprises with technical cost advantages." ”

According to data from the National Energy Administration, in the first 10 months of this year, the country's new photovoltaic installed capacity was 143 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 145%. Last year, China's new installed photovoltaic power generation capacity was 87.41 million kilowatts.

On November 23, at the China New Energy International Expo and Summit Forum held in Xi'an, Zhao Tianyi, a Chinese photovoltaic researcher at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, predicted that China's new installed photovoltaic power generation capacity will reach 195 million kilowatts this year, a year-on-year increase of 123%, and in 2024, China's new photovoltaic installed capacity will reach 208 million kilowatts, an increase of 67%.

Looking to the future, PV companies are expanding the international market, which is also one of the ways to hedge against fierce domestic competition. Liu Shuqi, chairman of Tongwei Co., Ltd. (600438.SH), said that the international layout of China's photovoltaic industry is worth considering.

"In the past, because of trade barriers, many domestic photovoltaic companies were forced to invest and build factories overseas, so the early enterprises went overseas mainly in Southeast Asia. Driven by demand, the overseas layout of Chinese enterprises has shifted from a passive layout in Southeast Asia to a market-oriented layout in North America or the Middle East in the future. Liu Shuqi said.

At the same time, she mentioned that in the future, the photovoltaic industry should consider how to carry out strategic synergy among leading enterprises. Tongwei believes in the specialization and dislocation of development, mainly focusing on polysilicon and cells, moderately participating in the wafer and module markets, and retaining a certain proportion of export sales and procurement in this part, so as to ensure that all enterprises maintain their own unique competitiveness in the development process of the industry.

Lu Chuan suggested that when raw materials fall to the normal range, the actual competition between enterprises is cell efficiency and non-silicon cost per watt, which is a strategy that the manufacturing industry needs to adhere to in the next few years.

It is undeniable that even as the PV industry experiences supply chain gluts and price challenges in 2023, demand is still highly certain. Gao Jifan, Li Xiande and others believe that in 2029 or 2030, the photovoltaic industry will move towards the TW era.