There used to be a saying that 'What the Chinese produce is what's left and what's surplus; What the Chinese need and what's in short supply.' Regardless of whether this sentence is truly universal, at least the first few sentences are applicable to China's polysilicon industry. .
Regardless of whether China gradually broke the barriers to high-purity polysilicon technology since 2009, the price of polysilicon will no longer rise by 10 times in seven years in a seven-year period, and the “worse event” with a profit margin of more than 800% at the peak. It is necessary to know the price of polysilicon since 2011. On the other hand, at the end of that year, the price dropped from the peak price of 730 yuan/kg to the low price of 210 yuan/kg at the end of the year. In the following years, even the basic price did not exceed this price. Even now, the price has been increasing. 100~165 yuan/kg interval 徘徊.
However, despite this, due to the rapid development of the world's photovoltaic industry, especially the rapid development of the domestic photovoltaic industry, China's major polysilicon manufacturers have also expanded their production capacity, especially the polysilicon-photovoltaic one-stop manufacturing enterprises, in order to effectively reduce costs. There are 'hands'.
In addition to imports, due to China’s demand for dense materials, polysilicon will still maintain a certain amount of imports. In January 2018, China’s polysilicon imports amounted to 16,262 tons, an increase of 29.7% from the previous month. This is a case of polysilicon in China. It is no doubt that the 'cake' that has not scored enough has been cut out again.
According to statistics, in 2017, China's domestic production of polysilicon enterprises had an effective production capacity of 276 thousand tons, and new production capacity of 66,000 tons; output was 242,000 tons, accounting for 56% of global production. In 2018, the polysilicon currently under construction in China With a capacity of up to 302,000 tons, it is expected to produce 576,400 tons of capacity by the end of the year.
It should be noted that with the advancement of technology in recent years, on the one hand, the utilization efficiency of polysilicon (polysilicon material is a direct raw material for producing monocrystalline silicon) has been continuously increasing, and on the other hand, the photoelectric conversion efficiency has also been continuously improved. Related data show that 2017 The silicon wafer corresponding to 1kg silicon material was 224W. In 2018, with the development of technology (especially the progress of slicing technology) and the application of monocrystalline silicon in the photovoltaic industry, the silicon wafer corresponding to 1kg silicon material was upgraded to 280W. In 2017, the national silicon wafer production equivalent module was 87.6 GW; in 2018, domestic polysilicon production reached or reached 433,000 tons (such as equipment overhaul and other reasons will cause the actual output and capacity to be inconsistent), and the silicon wafer output equivalent component is 121.24 GW.
In fact, according to forecasts, the total demand for PV modules in the world in 2018 is 110 GW. Considering that China's newly added polysilicon production capacity in 2018 will not be fully released until the end of the year, that is, by the end of 2018, China's polysilicon production capacity will meet global demand. Demand! Not only that, these capacities have even surpassed global demand, that is to say, at the end of the year, China's polysilicon production capacity may have been in fact excessive.
Perhaps this is somewhat alarmist, because in 2018 the global demand for photovoltaic modules may far exceed the forecasted 110 GW, but the polysilicon production lines launched in China have indeed reminded the approach of the oversupply crisis. By then, a new round of survival of the fittest will surely be staged again. In case of rain, China's polysilicon companies must be adequately prepared to survive.
