The photovoltaic industry is generally a market economy under the control of policies, so it will be affected by two factors: one is the influence of policy orientation, and the other is the influence of market economic laws. Since the rapid growth of the global photovoltaic market and industry in 2004, the photovoltaic industry has undergone severe fluctuations, reflecting the reality of the photovoltaic industry under the influence of these two factors. The corresponding photovoltaic company's business model also undergoes tremendous changes, making the company's operators have to adjust themselves to adapt to this change.
The photovoltaic industry has gone through four stages
In 2011, the photovoltaic market quickly shrank, while the capacity at the supply side expanded rapidly, and solar cell shipments decreased significantly. This led to the fifth phase of the development of China's photovoltaic industry. This will be a short period of relatively overcapacity.
The Chinese PV industry has undergone several evolutionary stages:
The first phase is before 2004. The intensity of encouraging policies in various countries is very small. China's photovoltaic industry is very small. At that time, there were only 6 crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturers, and their production capacity also added up to only 2MW. Wuxi Suntech has a production capacity of 5MW and Baoding Yingli has 3MW. There are also several amorphous silicon solar cell plants, which have a production capacity of less than 1MW. Even such small production capacity cannot be completely released. Since the introduction of the Internet Tariff Law in Germany in 2004, the global photovoltaic industry has seen tremendous growth. In 2004, the output of China's photovoltaic industry reached 50MW, an increase of 318% from the 12MW in 2003.
Afterwards, by the end of 2008, China's photovoltaic industry entered the second phase, which was in a period of rapid growth. The annual output growth rate exceeded 100%. The output reached 2589MW by 2008. During this period of time, the market, especially the European market, grew at a much faster rate than the global supply capacity. As a result, a huge seller market was formed. Solar cells kept their price strength while gradually expanding their production capacity. Solar cell industry chain has failed to meet the market demand, especially in high-purity polysilicon industry, the capacity expansion rate can not meet the market growth needs, so polysilicon prices rise year after year, to the 2008 high-purity silicon spot market before the international financial crisis The price of one-kilograms reached 300 to 400 US dollars a kilogram, while the long-term price of high-purity silicon is only 80 to 100 US dollars.
With the outbreak of the international financial crisis in October 2008, most of the time in 2009, led to a serious decline in the photovoltaic industry, which entered the third phase of China's photovoltaic industry. This phase lasted from October 2008 until the end of 2009, and many Chinese PV companies were hit hard and completely reversed the industry trend of shortage of high-purity polysilicon materials. However, at this stage, the market still has demand. The European photovoltaic policy is still in place. The customer's willingness to install is still very strong. Only the banking system has problems and the capital chain has been interrupted and the construction of the power station cannot be implemented. During this period of time, due to the considerable capacity of global photovoltaic companies, in the face of such market fluctuations, the product prices of crystalline silicon solar cells in the entire industrial chain have dropped significantly, and the price of solar cell modules for end products has risen from the first stage. The RMB 30 per watt was reduced to RMB 15 per watt. This huge drop in the European countries’ PV subsidy feed-in tariff did not result in a timely downward adjustment, creating a huge profit margin for European power station installers and middlemen. Starting in July and August 2009, with the international financial crisis still unrecovered, there was a rapid start of the market, which led to the global solar cell shipments reaching 12.464 GW in the year of the international financial crisis in 2009, compared to 2008. The 7.911GW increased by 58%.
The fourth stage was the entire 2010 after the international financial crisis. China's photovoltaic industry experienced another stage of ultra-high speed expansion. According to incomplete statistics, in 2010, China's new solar cell production line reached 400 standard production lines. According to calculation of 25MW per production capacity, the new production capacity reached 10GW, plus the original production capacity of about 6GW to 7GW, so the end of 2010 in China Solar cell production capacity is estimated to reach 16GW ~ 17GW. According to Photon International, a German photovoltaic magazine, China produced 13.01 GW in 2010, an increase of 173% from 4.75 GW in 2009, and accounted for 47.8% of the total shipments of global photovoltaic modules for the year.
In 2011, there was great uncertainty in the European PV policy. Italy's new subsidy policy is uncertain, and Germany's subsidies have also fallen sharply. This has led to a rapid shrinking of the market, and the supply side has dramatically expanded its production capacity. Shipments have been substantially reduced, which has entered the fifth phase of the development of China's photovoltaic industry. This will be a short period of relatively overcapacity. In this phase, a large backlog of component products of China's PV companies is under pressure, and each company competes to sell its products for survival. It is said that the pre-tax price of PV modules of some manufacturers has already dropped to RMB 9 per watt. As of June this year, the momentum of this recession is still in the process of fermentation.
Affected by dual volatility of policies and markets
With the fluctuation of the European photovoltaic market, the collapse of many small businesses in China will become a reality, but the losses of large companies will be even more severe. Although large companies will not fail, the industrial structure we see after the crisis will be concentrated. The further dispersion of the degree, the industry competition will be more fully.
Looking at the four huge fluctuations in China's photovoltaic industry, the huge increase in the second phase was caused by the European countries’ policy pull; the huge decline in the third phase was caused by global economic factors; the fourth phase of the huge The increase was due to the sustainability of the European photovoltaic policy and the combination of solar cell product price declines. The factors for the dramatic decline in the fifth phase are more complex. On the one hand, European policy makers continue to substantially reduce the subsidy price. The total amount of subsidy has affected the market. On the other hand, the European economy has become more vulnerable after entering 2011. The European sovereign debt crisis has become more and more serious, the unemployment rate has risen, and inflation has intensified. If 2009 is the "U.S. economic crisis," then 2011 is the "European economic crisis." This European economic crisis combined with the government's substantial reduction of subsidies for solar power generation Internet access has caused a double blow to the global photovoltaic manufacturing industry. At this time, China's photovoltaic industry has just completed a large-scale expansion, the supply of the entire industry chain, so the photovoltaic industry has caused such a huge impact.
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