Recently, the world's largest single crystal company Longji shares its November offer the latest monocrystalline wafers, a one-time drop to 0.4 yuan / piece, 180μm thickness of monocrystalline silicon from 6 yuan / piece down to 5.6 yuan / piece. Of the decline, compared with the latest price of polycrystalline sand line wafer 5.05 yuan / piece, once again narrowing the spread of single polycrystalline silicon.
For sharply lower prices move, industry stakeholders said: 'In the past two years, the domestic photovoltaic power plant investment companies have chosen more efficient single crystal products, direct bidding for the single crystal program more and more projects, single crystal share continued But the rate of increase in production capacity is slightly lagging.With the release of expansion projects of single crystal manufacturers in the second half of 2017, the current supply of single crystal is no longer a problem, and the price reduction is reasonable.
2016 polycrystalline contest
In fact, the price of single polycrystalline contest, already happened in 2016. The earlier application of single crystal line diamond wire technology, as well as the single crystal drawing technology to achieve an all-round breakthrough in upgrading and competitiveness rapidly improved.
According to the industry's public data, the price of single polycrystalline wafers in the first half of 2016 was only 0.3 yuan / piece and the price of single polycrystalline components was about 0.1 yuan / W. The change in spread not only allowed the terminal to see the technical capabilities of single- Is set off a wave of single crystal alternative.
Demand VS capacity
In recent years, the share of domestic single crystal continues to rise rapidly.
In 2014, monocrystal accounted for 5%, 15% in 2015, 27% in 2016, 36% in the first half of 2017 and more than 40% in the whole year. It is basically a foregone conclusion.
In the rapidly rising demand stimulus, the mainstream manufacturers have also increased the intensity of the layout of monocrystalline wafers.On the single crystal leading manufacturers, for example, Longji 2017 projects under construction at the same time include: Yinchuan 5GW, Zhongning 1GW, Yunnan 10GW The fourth phase of Central's 2017 project also reached a scale of around 15GW.
These newly added projects are basically releasing their capacity gradually after the second half of 2017. The pace of release of production capacity lags behind the increase in demand, so we also see two different price competitions.
In the first half of the year, the price of polycrystalline silicon wafer was going down all the way, while the monocrystalline wafer remained relatively firm under the condition of in short supply, while the price difference with polycrystalline wafer was widened at present. Expand market demand.
Monocrystalline alternative trend has been clear, the leading manufacturers have to make a choice
The face of the strong rise of single crystal, polycrystalline line feel pressure, but also accelerated its own technology to enhance speed.
In particular, the introduction of diamond wire, has become its most pressing needs. Diamond wire on the sand line will greatly reduce the current cost of polycrystalline silicon, is considered to be able to continue with the single crystal competition key factors now the entire polycrystalline Route, but also speed up the import process.
The introduction of the diamond line, in the end will let the polycrystalline re-take advantage? Different opinions, the future situation seems to be difficult to see a time.
But in fact the mainstream enterprises have already made a choice with action.
2015, Xie Xin, Ningxia 10GW single crystal project (has been put into production 1GW).
2016, Jingke, Xinjiang 3GW single crystal project (2017 - 2018 put into production).
2016, Artes, Inner Mongolia 2GW single crystal project.
2016, TRW, Yunnan 5GW single crystal project (with Longji joint venture)
2017, Jingao, Inner Mongolia 3GW single crystal project.
2017, Association Xin, shares of shares in the construction of the four single crystal silicon rod project.
Obviously, the mainstream manufacturers regardless of how to say the mouth, but have to extend the upstream monocrystalline silicon chip strategic adjustment, are real confirmation of future trends.
Single crystal competitiveness to enhance
Behind this trend, it is the absolute competitiveness of single crystal products.Even if the application of diamond after the crystal, it can not reverse the situation is embodied in the following two aspects:
1) wafers link - the cost difference between each piece is very small
Single crystal of the two years of the reduction, not all rely on the diamond line, pull crystal technology is a significant upgrade is the other half of the important factors, whether it is feeding volume, crystal rate, pulling speed or power consumption are significantly improved.
At present, the cost per kilogram of crystal pulling non-silicon has been less than 50. Compared with the cost of non-silicon ingots, the gap between 0.3-0.4 yuan per piece in the future, ingot costs have been lower, the downside is limited; the crystal pull conservative There is still 30% of the cost of optimization of space.China Unicom leading enterprises to choose a lower price of Yunnan layout (it is said that the cost of local hydropower electricity is expected to be more than 1 gross), can reduce the cost of electricity, the future single polycrystalline cost gap only Will be further reduced.
In the slicing, the first single-crystal enterprises into the diamond wire cutting, after more than three years of exploration, diamond wire cutting has matured, and polycrystalline companies have just begun to import, yield is not stable enough.Most equipment in the original sand line slicing machine Based on the transformation, the performance of the full import of special machines for single crystal enterprises.From the material properties of their own point of view, polycrystalline diamond wire cutting level in any case is optimized, it is difficult and single crystal to achieve the same level, whether it is thinning or The flaky, whether it is cutting speed or volume, as well as the final yield and the number of films, will be a lower grade than the single crystal.So the non-silicon cost of slicing, single crystal will always lead 0.1-0.2 yuan / piece Cost advantage.
Taking into account the single crystal battery, component efficiency gap widened, single crystal per watt cost competitiveness highlighted.
2) Battery components link - PERC technology to pull the component power difference
In addition to monocrystalline silicon technology and cost breakthrough, PERC battery technology is to further increase the competitive advantage of the single crystal line.
PERC (back passivation and local back electrode) technology is the most cost-effective means of efficiency in recent years.Compared with the conventional battery production line is high, the production line transformation cost is low, the efficiency is obvious, is the next 3-5 years of mainstream battery Technology. At present, mainstream enterprises are accelerating the construction of PERC capacity, is expected by the end of 2017 PERC production capacity will reach 20GW.
However, due to the different properties of single polycrystalline silicon material, the application of PERC technology, single crystal battery efficiency can be increased by 1-1.2 percentage points. Polycrystalline even black silicon technology can only increase 0.6-0.8 percentage points, resulting in a single polycrystalline component power difference further So most of the construction of PERC production capacity has adopted a single crystal line.
At the same time in the PERC battery initial attenuation problem, single crystal has been completely solved and mass production applications, single crystal PERC enterprises can promise the first year of not more than 2% of the decay rate.According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Electrical researcher Wang Wenjing report, polycrystalline PERC attenuation Not entirely due to boron oxide factors, attenuation mechanism is not very clear.
With the PERC products in the future large-scale production and application, will further increase the competitive advantage of the single crystal line.
According to news reports, Tongwei and other battery companies take the initiative to single crystal battery and polycrystalline battery prices into the same, assuming a single polycrystalline cell gross margin, the cost per watt single polycrystalline battery is basically the same. Tongwei is the domestic solar cell industry Of the benchmarking enterprises, battery capacity in September has reached 5.4GW, which Chengdu new Shuangliu 3GW battery projects are single crystal battery, which is a weathervane.
Single crystal production capacity has expanded rapidly, the future share will accelerate the upgrade
It is because the advantages of the product has been very clear, has always been low-key single crystal leader Longji and Central, will change the normal, huge investment to rapidly expand production capacity, in order to quickly seize the opportunity. Longji in 2018 will reach 25GW single Crystal silicon production capacity, the Central will also reach 23GW, the industry exclaimed, single crystal will enter the 'duopoly' era.
Jingke, Xie Xin, Artes and other enterprises, and without exception, is not seeking to establish or expand the production capacity of monocrystalline silicon, silicon industry to promote the rapid expansion of production capacity.According to the expansion of the situation, to the end of 2018, Industry monocrystalline silicon wafer production capacity will reach 60GW.
Looking at the future, based on their strong competitiveness, and the sharp expansion of single-crystal capacity, monocrystalline products can be expected to narrow the spread of single-polycrystalline products in the future and be difficult to expand.
