Solar pole silicon wafer drives photovoltaic market

As we all know, solar wafers are widely used in the photovoltaic industry. In its production process, the cut and formed silicon wafers are at the core of the entire industrial chain, and the final formed components are the core of the solar power generation system and are the highest value. It can be seen that the silicon chip is the core of the core and is the CPU of the entire photovoltaic industry. In this industrial chain, there are thousands of companies in processing, production, cutting, and assembly. Small silicon wafers are not only the driving force for photovoltaic power generation, but also carry trillions of yuan worth of market trays.

In recent years, with the frequent emergency of traditional energy sources and frequent environmental pollution problems, governments in various countries have put new energy sources on the agenda. As a result, the market demand for photovoltaic energy such as clean energy has begun to increase steadily. Local governments also set foot in horsepower to build photovoltaic power plant projects. According to Photon International's 2011 third phase world solar PV industry statistics, by 2011 China's PV market accounted for 47.8% of Asia's production, and Asia accounted for 82.3% of global production, compared with 75.7% in 2009.

This shows that China's photovoltaic market is huge. According to isuppli's latest forecast, this year's solar installations worldwide will be about twice as high as in 2009, and the growth rate will be close to 100%. “But with the recent global subsidy policies for major PV markets in Germany and Italy, the demand for PV modules is expected to rebound in the second half of the year, and the industry is expected to usher in a full recovery in the third quarter.” Photovoltaic industry stakeholders believe.

Coincidentally, in August this year, China introduced a PV online benchmark price policy. The document clearly requires that the photovoltaic project that meets the conditions approved before July 1, 2011, or completed before December 31st, can enjoy a subsidy policy of 1.15 yuan per kilowatt-hour. This has given a powerful boost to boosting the confidence of local governments and international capital in the Chinese PV industry.

Investors also expressed their optimism for the development of the industry. Jun Yu, head of investment in the new energy field at Junsheng Investment, said: "With the advancement of technology in all aspects of the polysilicon industry chain, the cost of the overall solar energy industry is falling very fast, if the cost of the solar energy industry can continue to drop to a critical point. (The cost per kWh is about 0.8-1 yuan.) The solar energy industry will no longer rely entirely on policy subsidies to develop rapidly."

Benefiting from this positive outlook, the wafer cutting edge enterprises in the middle segment of the subdivision sector are expected to achieve a demand of 375,000 to 450,000 tons of chips for cutting wafers in China in 2011. The annual financial report data of Henan Xindaxin Materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xindaxinxin Materials Co., Ltd.), a large-scale listed company in this field, shows that the company’s main business revenue is about RMB 1.2 billion, which is an increase of 121.08 over the same period of last year. %, of which the sales revenue of wafer cutting materials for crystal wafers was 1.1 billion yuan, which was more than 90% of the company's main revenue, an increase of 110.04%.

The recovery of waste mortar from another main business of Xindaxincao also showed a trend of being behind. The waste mortar treatment business serves wafer cutting companies. As the wafer cutting edge material will produce waste mortar during the process of cutting silicon wafers, the direct discharge of such waste will seriously pollute the water and land, and its recycling The treatment will greatly ease the pressure on the environment and reduce cost pressures for cutting companies. Judging from the current domestic process of cutting crystalline wafers, the solar photovoltaic industry in 2011-2012 will produce approximately 810,000 tons of waste mortar and 880,000 tons. The market is very promising.

The recent major business of Jiangyin Haobo Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiangyin Haobo), which has acquired billions of dollars in PE capital, is the production of cutting blades for silicon wafers and the disposal of waste mortar for solar wafer cutting companies. With its core technology, the company has become the core supplier of the upstream giants such as GCL-Poly, Tianwei New Energy, and Levi. The winning investment is also a reflection of the favorable solar industry policies and the advantages of energy-saving and environmental protection.

Technological upgrading accelerates the polysilicon industry to dominate the entire industry chain in the development of the solar photovoltaic market. It is a typical technology-intensive and capital-intensive industry. Therefore, major silicon wafer manufacturers have accelerated the pace of technological upgrading while expanding their production capacity. From the silicon material to the smooth silicon wafer, the intermediate process requires multiple processes and the process is complicated. However, due to years of development, related technologies have matured. In the upstream of silicon wafer production, large-scale enterprises GCL-Poly and Seville have achieved almost the same synchronization with the international market.

At the same time, cutting and blade production companies that provide services for silicon wafer production have also achieved technological breakthroughs in recent years. It is understood that the core of waste mortar processing technology lies in separation technology. At present, there are only a few domestic companies that can treat waste mortar. Most of them are original manufacturers of electrolyte or cutting sand, such as Xindaxinxin, Haobo Technology, Wuxi Jiayu, etc. Industry competition is not yet intense and the profit rate is considerable. “But because domestic processing technology is also completed in recent years, it is not mature enough. Compared to the treatment scale of cutting waste liquid in the solar energy industry, the processing capacity of waste mortar processing factories is relatively limited, and it has not begun until the last two years for solar energy cutting. Accepted by enterprises, their technical standards are also mainly confirmed by the commissioned manufacturers, and there are no relevant domestic standards.” According to industry sources.

However, the eco-environmental effects brought about by the waste mortar treatment have been widely praised. According to the data, solar silicon wafers produce about 1 million MW of solar crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules, which produces about 40 tons of waste mortar on average. According to current technology, after high-quality secondary treatment and recycling, 40 tons of waste mortar can be obtained. 12 tons of recycled sand (cutting blade), and 16 tons of recovery liquid (cutting fluid). With the improvement of the environmental protection requirements of the country, the maturity of the waste mortar treatment technology has solved a heart disease in the solar cutting industry, and has avoided possible potential environmental risks for the solar cutting industry.

However, such a subdivided market is also facing competitive pressures. At present, large-scale slicing companies have built waste mortar treatment plants themselves, or have selected relevant processing companies as partners. Enterprises that simply do waste mortar treatment need to rely on several large slicing companies to survive. Large and medium slicing companies will not completely rely on a waste mortar processing company. “This will gradually enable the industry to show oligopolistic competition. After all, the impact of the use of recycled product quality on processing costs may be greater than the reduction in procurement costs. If unsuitable recycling products are used, the company may lose out.” Junsheng Investment Huang Yu said .

The demand for polysilicon market has been booming For a long time, the solar energy industry has heavily depended on the supply of upstream polysilicon and pushed the price of polysilicon to a new high. It is understood that the price of polysilicon has been rising since 2000, up to $500/kg in 2008. This makes the polysilicon monopoly's gross profit margin up to 70%. However, in recent years, due to the continuous maturation of wafer processing and production technologies, the gross profit margin has gradually decreased.

However, enterprises with complete industrial chains can internally absorb the problems brought about by the drop in gross profit margin and directly translate into the advantages of a drop in production costs. According to Wafer LDK, a silicon wafer producer, there are two main polysilicon production lines, but they are mainly used for internal production and are not directly sold to outsiders. Therefore, they have little impact. The profitability of silicon chips and components is its main source of profit. It is understood that the unit manufacturing cost of the silicon wafer was reduced from the previous 0.31 US$ to 0.29 US$; the unit manufacturing cost of the PV module was reduced from the previous 0.36 US$ to 0.34 US$.

In spite of this, raw material polysilicon is still optimistic about the market. According to the report of PHOTON, an international photovoltaic consulting company, the global polysilicon market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 16% between 2010 and 2014 with a favorable policy and a huge market demand. By 2014, the demand will reach 290,000 tons. In order to seize the market opportunities, including the United States polysilicon companies Hemlock (Hemlock) Semiconductor Group, Germany Wacker Chemical Company, Japan's Deshan, including the global giants are widely deployed in large-scale polysilicon projects.

As a large supplier of polysilicon and silicon wafers in China, GCL-Poly has also formulated polysilicon expansion plans to meet the challenges. According to company data, this year and next year, it will invest HK$17.7 billion to expand its polysilicon and wafer production capacity, and plans to increase its polysilicon production capacity to over 46,000 tons by the end of this year. In this regard, the industry analysts: "The industry giants large-scale distribution of the raw material market, can take the initiative in the future competition." In addition, companies outside the industry are also optimistic about this market, and speed up the pace of production line construction.