How to break the "dammed lake" in the photovoltaic industry?
"The cost of photovoltaic products is low enough, and if it is lowered, there will be no money to be made. In fact, no further reduction may not bring more returns to the entire power system. ”
On December 15, at the 2023 annual conference of the photovoltaic industry, the "godfather of Chinese photovoltaics", who rarely appeared to attend the event Shi Zhengrong, who is now the chairman of Shangmai New Energy, said in the roundtable dialogue.
Since the beginning of this year, the price of the photovoltaic industry chain has continued to fall, and the bidding price of modules has even been lower than 1 yuan/W, and the profitability of enterprises has dropped sharply. Coupled with the cold in the secondary market, many people believe that the "cold winter" of the photovoltaic industry is coming.
Shi Zhengrong said that in the past 20 years, the photovoltaic industry has developed so fast, and for photovoltaic products, China has achieved the ultimate in terms of conversion efficiency, cost, production capacity and supply chain.
"The bottleneck of the future development of the photovoltaic industry is not in the manufacturing of photovoltaic products, but in the latter few items of the entire power system, transmission, distribution and transmission, which cannot fully adapt to the situation of a large number and large proportion of intermittent energy such as photovoltaic and wind energy." Shi Zhengrong said.
Since the second half of this year, the industry has also frequently mentioned the possible constraints of the future power grid on the development of new energy.
Distributed photovoltaic projects in many places have been suspended. For example, in July this year, Yingkou City, Liaoning Province, issued a notice on the filing of distributed photovoltaic projects, which pointed out that the new capacity of distributed power generation in Yingkou was 981.97 MW. From January 2022 to May 2023, the registered non-grid-connected photovoltaic capacity in Yingkou has reached 1527.06 MW, far exceeding the capacity of distributed power generation in Yingkou area.
8On the 23rd, Hubei Province issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Management of the Whole Process of Distributed Photovoltaic Power Generation Projects (Draft for Comments)", pointing out that due to the insufficient "grid connection and consumption capacity" of the distribution network, the filing of distributed photovoltaic power generation projects will be suspended in counties (cities and districts) with a red early warning level for low-voltage distribution network connection.
Similar situations occur frequently, so some voices in the industry believe that it will be difficult for new photovoltaic installations next year to reach the high growth rate of the previous two years.
LONGi Green Energy (601012.SH)Chairman Zhong Baoshen said at the meeting that the current development of China's photovoltaic is still added to the original power system, relying on the adaptability of the past energy system to photovoltaic installation and development. With the large increase in photovoltaic installed capacity and the increase in proportion, the past scheduling mode and scheme are facing great pressure in terms of normal and safe operation.
"The energy transition is not an overnight event, it is a change in the system. In the future, some innovation and adaptation to the system will be needed, and eventually the global energy system will be changed. Zhong Baoshen said that this not only requires photovoltaic companies, but also many participants such as the planning and design of the power grid, the design of systems and mechanisms, and other technical specialties need to work together to promote this work.
Sungrow(300274.SZ)Vice Chairman Gu Yilei also pointed out the dilemma of power grid consumption. He pointed out that photovoltaic consumption also needs energy storage, but the current utilization rate of energy storage is very low, many mechanisms have not been opened, and the rules are not very reasonable.
According to the cumulative new wind and solar installed capacity data in the past three years, the new installed capacity in 2021-2022 will be 103 GW and 125 GW respectively, and the new wind and solar installed capacity in the first 10 months of 2023 alone will be close to 180 GW. Such a large-scale new installation of wind and solar power will pose a great challenge to the consumption of the power grid, and the scarcity of system flexibility resources will become more and more prominent.
"In this case, on the one hand, top-level design is needed to enable the power system to quickly promote the development of smart grids. On the other hand, the photovoltaic industry needs innovation, not only the innovation of photovoltaic products, but also the in-depth thinking about what can be done from the perspective of the power system. Shi Zhengrong said.
He also advocates the development of distributed energy, believing that distributed energy can deploy power generation, energy storage, etc. in a small area, and rely on small resources and forces to solve big problems in application scenarios.
"By opening up more application scenarios and accelerating distributed on-site consumption, we may be able to make some contributions to the production capacity of photovoltaic products in the near future." Shi Zhengrong said.
Canadian Solar (688472.SH)President Zhuang Yan also pointed out at the meeting that the issue of new energy consumption is mainly a matter of coordination and policy, and the introduction of carbon emission charging policy is very important. From the perspective of large-scale development, it is necessary to make efforts to expand photovoltaic application scenarios, otherwise the development of the industry will soon have a bottleneck.
Lu Chuan, chairman of Chint New Energy, believes thatWhether the government can give definitive planning and timely disclosure of information is also a problem faced by new energy consumption. Due to the opacity of capacity information and uncertain planning, many projects have become "dammed lakes" after a certain degree of development.
Lu Chuan suggested that domestic PV projects can be added trackers, carbon footprint and green electricity use can be in line with international standards, and the loss of electricity prices caused by the oversupply of clean energy can be made up for as soon as possible.
Gao Jifan, chairman of Trina Solar (688599.SH), emphasized the role of energy storage at the meeting. He believes that energy storage can solve the pressure of power grid consumption and break through the bottleneck of photovoltaic installation, and the construction of a new energy installation mode of photovoltaic storage synergy can open the market ceiling, and the integration of photovoltaic and storage will become the key to the next stage of developing new energy and achieving carbon neutrality.
