Where is the next main battlefield for China's photovoltaic industry?
Distributed! This may be the answer to the question with the largest consensus in the industry.
In 2016, distributed photovoltaic installed capacity increased by 4.24 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 200%. In 2017, according to the analysis of relevant information from major enterprises by the National Renewable Energy Center, it is expected that in the first half of the year, China's new installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation will reach 24 million kilowatts, of which distributed photovoltaic will add 7 million kilowatts, nearly three times the new scale of the same period in 2016. A new era of large-scale development of distributed photovoltaic is approaching.
At the same time as the explosive growth of distributed computing, the existing problems are also obvious. Inefficient and low-quality photovoltaic modules are flooding the market, forcing high-quality products to be exported overseas, becoming a "flood outlet" for low-quality and low-efficiency modules and a "cash cow" for resellers of counterfeit and inferior products
Regarding this market deviation, Li Zhenguo, President of Longji Group, has clearly proposed that distributed photovoltaics must enter the 3.0 era, which is a new era where efficient products represented by 300W modules are injected into terminals on a large scale, and distributed products completely bid farewell to rough manufacturing and low quality and low efficiency. Distributed products not only have high efficiency, but also high safety and high appearance.
The concept of distributed 3.0 has accurately hit the pain point of rooftop photovoltaics. Once proposed, a whirlwind immediately swept through the photovoltaic industry, with many supporters. So, what kind of era is the Distributed 3.0 era? How will the distributed market develop in the future? Where are the new business opportunities?
On July 18th, at the "Roof Photovoltaic Power Generation (Hebei) Lecture Hall", several well-known experts and media reporters had in-depth exchanges on the above topic. Let's listen to the exciting views of well-known experts in the industry!
Lv Fang, Secretary General of the Photovoltaic Special Committee of the China Renewable Energy Society:
During the Ming Dynasty, Mu Muleb focused his attention and complemented each other. "This is a sentence from Wang Bao of the Han Dynasty, which is very appropriate to describe the future application of distributed photovoltaics. The era of distributed photovoltaic 3.0 is not the era of an enterprise or a person. It is the era led by Longji, which is a big era.
Today, distributed power plants are starting to have an equal share with ground power plants, and this trend is very obvious. For the development of distributed computing, I can summarize it in two sentences and eight words: the rule of letters and qualitarianism. 26 English letters, starting from A for agriculture and B for architecture, distributed photovoltaic can be combined with many industries and applications; At the same time, we will pay more attention to quality in the future, achieving efficiency, reliability, green, and aesthetics.
In future energy, distributed energy will be an important part; In distributed energy, distributed photovoltaics must be a protagonist, which is my expectation for the future. In the future, we will discuss more comprehensive energy supply plans within the region, which includes multiple complementary energy sources, including cogeneration and photovoltaic. This is the vision for the future.
Distributed photovoltaic is facing the C-end market, facing the common people and thousands of households. In the future, providing convenient one-stop operations for the general public on mobile terminals is a new distributed model and a business model for the Internet. I believe this will be the trend in the future. In addition, after the construction of distributed photovoltaics, it is currently only an asset. How can we turn assets into capital? It's also a problem. I hope the government can provide some very positive incentives in management policies to encourage enterprises to engage in open innovation on various business routes.
Wang Wenjing, Director of Solar Cell Research Office of Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences:
After entering the 3.0 era of distributed photovoltaics, I hope the cost can be reduced to less than 2 yuan. The reduction in electricity prices will also be significant, but I do not predict electricity prices.
Distributed photovoltaics, this year will be an explosive year, but there were actually related incentive policies in 2016. Why hasn't distributed photovoltaics been pushed aside? We once conducted a survey to identify the reasons for the poor promotion of distributed computing. Simply put, there are four major difficulties: difficulty in financing, difficulty in grid connection, difficulty in settlement, and difficulty in operation and maintenance. These four points are crucial in the distributed field and need to be addressed.
The field of photovoltaics is very cruel, it is a zero sum game, and it is definitely not possible to find a middle ground. I think the future of this competition between monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon will be a zero sum game. If monocrystalline silicon wins, 90% of the future will be monocrystalline silicon; Polycrystalline silicon will have the upper hand in the future, with 90% being entirely polycrystalline silicon, so this will be a change of the times. In the future, whoever can occupy the main market with polycrystalline silicon or monocrystalline silicon, who has high efficiency and good silicon wafer quality, will definitely win in the face of various decline in the future. That is to say, the ultimate victory is high quality, high quality, high efficiency, and cost-effective!
To become popular with 300W components, it is necessary to find a balance between cost and benefit. Future photovoltaic products will be two extreme things. There is a type of product that is inefficient and costly, and there is no market for such products, which can only go to hell; Another type is high efficiency and high cost. This battery will go to heaven and be used on rockets and satellites, regardless of cost, but there is no living space on the ground; Another thing is to maintain high efficiency while keeping costs low, so that we can be 'on earth'.
Dong Xiaoqing, President of the New Energy Institute of Hebei Energy Engineering Design Co., Ltd.:
Distributed development in 2017 was truly explosive, with the flexibility of distributed self use and surplus internet access, which determined that rooftop distribution has great potential. However, the roof distribution is also a bit overheated and the quality is uneven.
The roof is distributed, including 630 projects, and there have been many unsatisfactory aspects in order to receive subsidies during the rush period. If this continues to develop, there will be major issues with distributed roofs, such as safety and fire safety issues. There have already been many quality issues such as wind breaks or fires. So I suggest all industry insiders to do conscience engineering and apply the best products to household rooftop distribution.
Roof resources are very scarce, and everyone is competing for a good roof. In this situation, the capacity of the roof is limited. How can we fully utilize the roof? How to increase power generation? How to improve usage efficiency? For component selection, it is essential to maximize capacity, maximize quality, and minimize attenuation within a limited area, in order to create more value for consumers over the course of 25 years of use.
From this point of view, I urge everyone to use efficient components as much as possible in rooftop distribution. The previous efficient components have been used in the leader project and in large ground power plants. In fact, rooftop distribution requires more efficient components and high-quality equipment than ground power plants, and we hope that the 3.0 era is a new starting point.
Li Zhengping, Institute of Solar Energy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University:
Efficient and low-cost is an eternal topic in the photovoltaic industry, and under reasonable cost-effectiveness conditions, 3.0 will gradually demonstrate its advantages.
From the perspective of the entire industry and the development situation at home and abroad, distributed is a trend. We can see that it is distributed in both the United States and Japan. From this trend, it is certain that in the future, ground resources will become increasingly scarce, moving towards rooftops and combining them with various application scenarios. So we need to vigorously develop distributed computing, no matter how difficult it is.
The 300W component has now been seen and should appear in bulk in the next year or two. Now everyone is talking about Industry 4.0. Let's imagine if there is a possibility that distributed computing can also reach the level of 4.0 in the future? There will be many technologies to be applied, and considering efficiency and low cost, I believe that one day it will develop into the era of distributed 4.0.
Kou Fenghai, Chief Engineer of China Power Construction Hebei Electric Power Survey, Design and Research Institute:
My dream is that one day there will be photovoltaic energy everywhere, with photovoltaic energy in the cars I drive, photovoltaic energy on the roof of bus stop signs, and photovoltaic energy everywhere. Photovoltaic energy is distributed everywhere, making it a green world.
Distributed photovoltaic belongs to a form of distributed power generation, and I have a very optimistic attitude towards this form of energy utilization because it can solve the remote transmission loss of electricity and also play a green and environmentally friendly role to a certain extent. What I am more interested in is this form of self generated self consumption surplus.
I prefer to see household distributed photovoltaic as a financial product. I come from a rural area. Apart from farming, farmers basically keep their savings in banks. Bank deposits have been declining, and long-term deposits and monetary fund interest rates are very low. Farmers spend tens of thousands of yuan to build a photovoltaic power station. With good access conditions and support policies, achieving a return of 10% or more in the entire life cycle is very good for farmers to increase their income, Developing distributed photovoltaic village level power stations is a good form.
In photovoltaic power plants, the cost and price of photovoltaic modules are the highest. If we can have the best products, have a full process supervision, and ensure the design quality of each link, we can create a very good photovoltaic power plant. I am very pleased to see Longji Leye launch 300W photovoltaic modules. My first contact with monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules was Longji Leye, and I admire their courage: do you do polycrystalline? They said no, we only make single crystals! A company can achieve the ultimate in something, which is a spirit of craftsmanship.