Core logic:
In the era of affordable Internet, cost reduction and efficiency increase are still the key factors to promote the further development of photovoltaic. Globally, photovoltaic has become the cheapest form of power generation in most countries and regions, realizing affordable Internet access on the power generation side. However, due to the intermittence, randomness and volatility of photovoltaic power generation, other power sources are required to carry out peak and frequency modulation for it when connected to the existing power grid, or large-scale long-term energy storage is added. Therefore, from the perspective of power system, pv has not achieved parity, and further cost reduction and efficiency increase are needed. Therefore, in order to build a new power system with new energy as the main body, it is necessary to pursue new technology with higher efficiency and lower cost, among which the main link should be the progress and application of efficient battery technology.
We believe that the current iteration of efficient battery technology is the inevitable trend of further decline of LCOE and further development of photovoltaic industry. Starting from the current time point, the mass production/medium trial production line of the new generation of high-efficiency batteries of various enterprises will enter the intensive equipment delivery and commissioning stage. At the same time, the equipment commissioning parameters of many equipment enterprises will also be disclosed, and the direct competition for the terminal market will begin at the beginning of 22. This round of mainstream technology route from P-type to N-type switch, on the main industrial chain, auxiliary supplies, equipment and other areas of the competition pattern will also have an important impact. We expect n-type products to be scaled up to replace PERC starting in 2022.
In addition to paying attention to the highest mass production efficiency of TOPCon/HJT of each enterprise, we still can't ignore: is the technical route itself suitable for the current mass production, can yield be further improved, whether the efficiency improvement and cost reduction route is fast and feasible? Combined with the characteristics of mainstream N-type technology and the actual situation of the industry, this report makes an in-depth analysis of the main technical route, technical difficulties and development of the current N-type technology, and makes a reasonable inference of the industrialization process of N-type technology according to the actual situation of the current industry.
TOPCon is expected to take more market share as it benefits from a certain amount of PERC capacity upgrades in the industry. The competition of N-type technology route is essentially the competition of efficiency and cost. Therefore, under the premise that PERC technology still dominates the world and overcapacity, TOPCon and HJT technology efficiency (mainly reflected in the component side) is still equal, the level of cost is particularly important for the choice of N-type technology. Since the newly built PERC production lines after 2019 have basically reserved layout space for upgrading to TOPCon, and TOPCon's single GW construction and upgrade investment is relatively low, which has a significant cost advantage compared to HJT's single GW investment of 400-450 million yuan. Subsequently, the cost can be further reduced through yield improvement and the replacement of home-made silver paste. Therefore, TOPCon is expected to dominate the N-type battery market in the next 2-3 years.
In the long term, HJT is more in line with the development trend of industrial technology. Compared with TOPCon, HJT has a clearer route of cost reduction and efficiency increase. HJT is more compatible with silicon wafer wafer, future perovskite and other lamination technologies, so there is more room for efficiency improvement and cost reduction. With the further decrease of equipment investment, the continuous improvement of efficiency, the thinning of silicon wafers, the introduction of microcrystal silicon technology, the popularization of annealing and impurity absorption technology, the maturity of low-temperature silver paste and silver-coated copper technology, the cost of HJT is expected to be rapidly reduced. When the production cost per watt of HJT technology is not much different from TOPCon technology (estimated in 2023-2024), and breakthroughs are made in the downstream verification of silver-coated copper, electroplating and other new metallization technologies, HJT's market share is expected to increase rapidly.