Both past experience in traditional industries, or the past few years of new energy industry practice, the industry into the penetration rate acceleration phase, will bring at least three major results.
First, the overall acceleration of market scale growth, the head of the enterprise especially benefited; Second, the capital market to give higher valuations, this stage of the valuation of the largest increase; Third, the capital chase under the old forces to expand production capacity, new forces have been involved. In short, the industry is booming, the capital performance is lively.
So, the current stage of the photovoltaic industry which segments of the penetration rate is or will be accelerated?
1, household photovoltaic
In 2021, China's household PV installed 21.6GW, accounting for 39% of the total PV installed during the same period, an increase of more than 116% year-on-year, is the main force of China's new PV installed last year.
By the end of 2021, China's cumulative installation of household PV more than 41GW, if measured by an average of 15KW per household, has covered more than 2.7 million users.
There are about 400 million households in China, under the general mobilization of "carbon neutral", if 30 million of them install PV, the market capacity is more than 1 trillion yuan, but the current market penetration rate is less than 10%.
According to the famous "innovation diffusion model", after the market penetration rate of innovative products exceeds 10%, it will enter a steep upward curve, and the penetration rate will accelerate, which we can call the industrial tipping point under the penetration rate indicator. This is particularly significant in the field of electric vehicles and will not be repeated.
About household PV, this public number has published a "trillion household PV, is ushering in the butterfly" in May 2021, earlier revealed the outbreak of household PV.
Household photovoltaic in the early promotion of individual controversy, which is any fresh industry will face the problem, this in the field of electric cars is also very obvious, I believe that with the increasing penetration rate, household photovoltaic will also be like electric cars in the penetration rate breakthrough critical point will also usher in a faster pace of development.
This is the market law of industrial development.
2、N-type battery
The current mainstream PERC cell technology, thanks to the large-scale penetration of monocrystalline silicon wafers and the rapid localization of equipment, simple manufacturing process, low production costs, the rapid promotion and application in 2017.
However, from the current state of technological development, the efficiency of PERC cells is approaching the limit of 24.5%, and their cost reduction rate, too, has slowed down.
At present, N-type cells are most expected to succeed P-type cells as the next generation of mainstream technology, especially TOPCon and HJT, this is already the industry consensus, PV giants have also been laid out.
In 2021, the global PV installation is about 160GW, N-type battery installation is still less than 8GW, the market penetration rate is less than 5%.
Incomplete statistics, the global N-type battery capacity is expected to exceed 50GW by the end of 2022, and is expected to exceed 100GW by the end of 2023.
It can be expected that the next 1-2 years will be a golden period for N-type cells to replace P-type cells, and the penetration rate will increase rapidly, and N-type cells are expected to come out of the momentum of monocrystalline replacement of polycrystalline.
3、BIPV
Last June, the National Energy Board issued a "notice on the submission of the whole county (city, district) roof distributed photovoltaic development pilot program", "the whole county to promote" the activation of the vast building roof resources.
In October last year, the Ministry of Housing and Construction issued the "General Specification for Building Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Use" as a mandatory engineering construction specification to be implemented from April 1, 2022, which requires that "new buildings should be installed with solar energy systems".
In addition, the highest level of the external release of the "on the complete and accurate implementation of the new development concept to do a good job of carbon peak carbon neutral views" requires: vigorously develop energy-saving low-carbon buildings, accelerate the optimization of building energy structure, deepen the application of renewable energy buildings, accelerate the promotion of building energy electrification and low-carbon, and carry out building roof photovoltaic action.
With the introduction of a series of rooftop PV policy, domestic distributed PV is ushering in a new round of development opportunities, 2021 distributed PV installation accounted for more than 50% of the total installed capacity, and BIPV as an effective combination of PV + building, in the context of building energy efficiency, green building "carbon neutral", is expected to become the mainstream form of future distributed PV.
China's stock of commercial and industrial and public building land area of about 34.6 billion square meters, the past five years of new commercial and industrial and public building land area of about 2 billion square meters per year. In the new building mandatory installation of solar energy systems under the policy requirements, the annual new capacity is expected to reach 20GW, the stock of building renovation space more.
Currently, domestic BIPV has just started, and the penetration rate is almost zero. In the future, BIPV is expected to increase the penetration rate from two aspects.
On the one hand, as BIPV reduces costs and increases efficiency, it will gradually become economical in the renovation of stock roofs, and then intervene in the stock market from the incremental market.
On the other hand, the extension from building roofs to building facades may be driven by both the economic factor of building energy efficiency (carbon emission assessment), especially for industrial and commercial building facades, and the aesthetic factor of green building, especially for public buildings or government and institutional building facades.
Whether from incremental to stock, or from roof to façade, building energy efficiency and green building is the definite direction in the wave of double carbon target, and BIPV is the most important tool.
4、Tracking bracket
Here we mainly talk about the penetration rate of domestic tracking brackets.
At present, the global penetration rate of tracking bracket has reached about 50%, the U.S. market is more than 70%, while the Chinese market is about 20%, the penetration rate of tracking bracket in the Chinese market has a lot of room for improvement.
The reason for the low penetration rate in the Chinese market is mainly due to the influence of the domestic power plant investment body and style. The cost of capital is high in China, especially for the state-owned investors, who pay more attention to the initial unit investment cost than to the whole life cycle ROI. In fact, although the use of tracking bracket will increase the initial investment cost, it will increase the whole life cycle return, and the overall return is increased and more economical.
In addition, as tracking brackets are more suitable for large ground-based power plants, but not for distributed power plants, and the installed share of domestic distributed PV reaches 53% in 2021, which also restricts the use of domestic tracking brackets.
With the promotion of N-type cells and the construction of large PV bases, tracking brackets are expected to gain more acceptance. With tracking brackets, the optimal combination of "high efficiency + bifacial + tracking" can be better realized.
In addition, in the context of more and more long-term capital involvement in photovoltaic power plant investment, the investment decision is more long-term, the initial absolute investment cost consideration is reduced, return to the whole life cycle of the yield index, this investment style is also more conducive to the promotion of tracking bracket.
Therefore, the environmental factors of tracking bracket in the domestic market are changing, and the penetration rate of tracking bracket is expected to accelerate.
Of course, the increase of tracking stent penetration is bound to reduce the proportion of fixed stents, so for fixed stent manufacturers must step up the layout of tracking stents to maintain their market share, while professional tracking stent manufacturers are expected to see rapid growth.
5、Professional asset management
About asset management in the field of new energy, in April 2021 this public number has published an article "new energy asset management industry, is born". Here for the PV industry asset management topics, and then further elaborate.
Overseas, especially in the United States large photovoltaic power plant funding body, market-based funds, financing model diversification, while the current domestic large photovoltaic power plant is dominated by energy state-owned enterprises, especially the energy central enterprises.
This model has a certain stage.
Energy state-owned enterprises have lower cost of capital, but also lower risk tolerance, more preference for standardized, large-scale ground power plants, and for personalized photovoltaic assets, especially distributed photovoltaic assets are less acceptable.
At present, distributed photovoltaic assets are mainly concentrated in the hands of private enterprises, only individual energy central enterprises are involved. Among them, commercial and industrial distributed assets are mainly regional developers or investors, in addition to the early start of the South Energy, few national institutions; household PV assets are mainly concentrated in the hands of a few head of the national private developers such as Astronergy, in the hands of a few national private developers, last year, the State Power Investment through a package acquisition began to intervene in this field.
In the field of large terrestrial power plants, with the increase in the scale of assets and gearing of energy state-owned enterprises, as well as the increase in the level of specialization of financial institutions, in the "double carbon" goal of attraction, specialized funds are expected to directly involved in large photovoltaic power plant assets, especially the longer term insurance funds or other long-term capital, and thus complement the existing energy state-owned capital-based sources of funding, to overseas mature markets.
In the field of distributed photovoltaic assets, at present still dominated by private enterprises, especially the scattered regional developers or investors, with their own funds to develop and hold, this model is difficult to continue to do large. At present, although there are individual energy central enterprises involved, but as personalized assets is difficult to promote in state-owned enterprises in general, so the urgent need to dock with market-based funds, this aspect also needs to explore the appropriate business model, is currently almost a virgin land.
Whether it is the mature experience overseas or the development needs of the domestic PV industry, the introduction of diversified long-term capital through specialized asset management in the domestic PV sector is a must, and it has just started, with various interest players still exploring and polishing cooperation models suitable for the national conditions.
The penetration rate of these segments is at different stages and shows different characteristics, for example, household PV started to accelerate last year but the penetration rate is not yet high, while the penetration rate of tracking brackets and professional asset management in China still has a lot of space, N-type cells have just started and are expected to start accelerating this year, while BIPV is ready to take off.
In any case, these segments still have a lot of room to perform globally or domestically and are worth looking forward to.
