Recently, in order to further strengthen the management of the photovoltaic manufacturing industry and promote high-quality development of the industry, the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology revised and formed the "Normative Conditions for the Photovoltaic Manufacturing Industry (2024 Edition)" (referred to as the "Normative Conditions") and the "Regulations for the Administration of Photovoltaic Manufacturing Industry Normative Announcements (2024 Edition)" (referred to as the "Management Measures") (draft for soliciting opinions), and publicly solicited opinions from the society.
Among them, the normative conditions have been revised in multiple data aspects based on the 2021 version, removing the capital ratio requirements for new and expanded polycrystalline silicon manufacturing projects from the original conditions, and increasing the minimum capital ratio for new and expanded photovoltaic manufacturing projects from the original 20% to 30%.
On July 11th, Qian Jing, Global Vice President of Jingke Energy, stated in an interview with China Securities Journal and CSI Taurus reporters that moderate policy guidance is necessary for any industry to achieve healthy and sustainable development. Currently, as far as the photovoltaic industry is concerned, there is not much opportunity to widen the competitive gap by adding new scale.
In addition to the above adjustments, in terms of process technology in the photovoltaic industry, compared to the 2021 version, both existing photovoltaic manufacturing enterprises and project products, as well as new and expanded enterprises and project products, have improved the photovoltaic conversion efficiency standards of polycrystalline silicon cells and monocrystalline silicon cells, as well as the photovoltaic conversion efficiency standards of modules. This has once again attracted market and industry attention to photovoltaic technology.
There are reports that new technologies will emerge next year, with lower costs than TOPCon. Regarding this, Qian Jing stated that how to strive for the top spot in TOPCon and maintain a six month faster efficiency improvement rate than others is what the company needs to do.
As for cost, Qian Jing stated that without replacing auxiliary materials, TOPCon's scale advantage, industrial chain advantage, and high yield advantage will continue to emerge. "When other technologies in the industry emerged, due to TOPCon's accumulated manufacturing experience, they could only achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement at a faster pace without sacrificing product reliability. This actually gave a boost to manufacturers who focus on TOPCon technology research and development. Currently, Jingke Energy has mastered TOPCon's core 330 technology patents, which is one of the reasons why Jingke insists on TOPCon," said Qian Jing.
Previously, Jinko Energy successfully won the world's largest component supply contract for the Neom Green Hydrogen project located in Saudi Arabia. It is reported that the project is expected to set the world's lowest green hydrogen price. When it comes to the reasons, Qian Jing stated that 70% of the cost of photovoltaic hydrogen production depends on the photovoltaic electricity price, while the cost of electricity per kilowatt hour under the same conditions depends entirely on the components used. All of the Neom1GW green hydrogen projects in Saudi Arabia have selected Jingke TOPCon components. Faced with the typical characteristics of strong ultraviolet radiation, high temperature, and windy and sandy geographical environment in the installation site of the project, the customer underwent various rigorous reliability testing comparisons and ultimately chose the Tiger Neo N-type TOPCon component, which also proves the cost advantage of TOPCon.
For the currently highly anticipated BC technology, Qian Jing stated that BC technology is a platform technology, and the structure of batteries is the same, but the electrode composition is different. IBC is a relatively pure single-sided battery technology that can be combined with various technologies such as P-type, N-type, perovskite, etc. For example, the combination with N-type HJT technology is called "HBC" battery, while the combination based on P-type is sometimes referred to as "HPBC" battery. Another type is TBC (Tunneling oxide passivated contact back contact). "All of these can be done, but they increase the difficulty of technology and industrialization, increase costs, and have the same effect, so they have no value."
When it comes to the next step of technological development reserves, Qian Jing believes that TOPCon stacked batteries have significantly reduced charge recombination losses and improved the efficiency of single crystal silicon batteries by optimizing the oxide and polycrystalline silicon thin film layers on the back. This optimization also makes it easier for TOPCon technology to adapt to the needs of stacked batteries in design and manufacturing, as both TOPCon and stacked batteries involve multi-level photoelectric conversion.