On January 25, JA Solar, a leading photovoltaic company, announced that it plans to invest in a battery and module project in the Yangzhou Economic Development Zone. The construction will be divided into two phases with a total investment of 10 billion yuan. The implementation will begin this year.

In the past two years, the prosperity of the photovoltaic industry has been booming, which has made the performance of many photovoltaic companies continue to rise. Even in the context of the global spread of the new crown epidemic, all photovoltaic companies did not hesitate to join the production capacity “race”.

Due to the strong growth in demand, so far more than 80% of the A-share photovoltaic companies disclosed the 2020 net profit forecasts have achieved positive growth. With the blowout of photovoltaic installed capacity and potential demand, the news of the tens of billions of expansion of domestic photovoltaic companies is no longer big news.

Although the concerns about “being vigilant against overcapacity in the domestic photovoltaic industry” have never disappeared, the enthusiasm of photovoltaic companies for production expansion has remained unabated. On January 19, LONGi announced its photovoltaic cell expansion project in Xixian New District, Shaanxi Province. It plans to build 15GW monocrystalline cells with a total investment of about 8 billion yuan. According to another report, in 2020, 13 major domestic listed photovoltaic companies announced a total of more than 40 expansion projects, with a total investment of 236.4 billion yuan. Together with these two large investments at the beginning of the new year in 2021, the total amount has exceeded 250 billion yuan.

According to data released by the National Energy Administration on January 20, the country’s new installed capacity of power sources will be 190.87 million kilowatts in 2020, including 13.23 million kilowatts of hydropower, 71.67 million kilowatts of wind power, and 48.2 million kilowatts (48.2GW) of solar power (photovoltaic). Among them, the new photovoltaic installed capacity in the first three quarters of 2020 totaled 18.7GW, which means that the photovoltaic installed capacity reached 29.5GW in the fourth quarter, far exceeding the sum of the first three quarters.

Public information shows that the “snap-up tide” in the fourth quarter also directly led to the soaring and shortage of photovoltaic glass prices. In the second half of 2020, the market price of photovoltaic glass soared. The average price of coated 3.2mm products rose from 23 yuan/square meter in June last year to 37 yuan/square meter in October, and the price in December has reached 43 yuan/square meter.

Behind the crazy “installation boom” and “production expansion tide”, on the one hand, it is the long-term carbon neutrality target and the short-term and medium-term “14th Five-Year Plan” to support the new energy industry, opening up the future of the photovoltaic industry On the other hand, in the past year, a large amount of money has poured into photovoltaic stocks, and the share prices of many leading companies have hit record highs, making photovoltaics a star concept in the A-share market.

Due to the blessing of capital, photovoltaic companies have embarked on the road of radical expansion. In the short term, the supply of all links in the photovoltaic industry chain will rapidly climb and face the possibility of exceeding expected supply. As a material product in the upper reaches of the photovoltaic industry chain, silicon wafers have also ushered in a substantial expansion in the past year. Although these new capacity cannot be released immediately in the short term, the nominal excess capacity is an indisputable fact.

An industry insider believes that in the field of monocrystalline silicon wafers, the industry structure with LONGi and Zhonghuan as the duopoly is ushering in the biggest adjustment in the past five years. Although the current market conditions do not support the immediate price reduction of monocrystalline silicon wafers, But under the premise of the release of a large number of new capacity in the next one or two years, a price war is about to break out, and the time is likely to be after the Spring Festival.