China is accelerating from a "large photovoltaic country" to a "strong photovoltaic country". Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the National Energy Administration and other six departments jointly issued the "intelligent photovoltaic industry development action plan (2018-2020)" clearly, by 2020, the intelligent photovoltaic factory construction is effective, industry automation, information technology, intelligence to make significant progress; intelligent manufacturing technology and equipment to achieve breakthroughs, support PV intelligent manufacturing software and equipment and other competitiveness significantly improved; intelligent photovoltaic product supply capacity and the formation of brand effect; intelligent photovoltaic system construction and operation and maintenance level and large-scale application in multiple fields.
The photovoltaic industry is a sunrise industry based on semiconductor technology and new energy needs, and is the high point of future global competition in advanced industries. In terms of scale, China's photovoltaic industry is already deservedly the first in the world. Data show that in 2017, China's new installed PV power generation reached 53 GW, the world's first new installed PV power generation for five consecutive years, accounting for half of the world. But at the same time, China's photovoltaic enterprises still need to rely on imports of many key equipment and special materials, for example, about 60% of the silver powder used to make silver paste is still dependent on imports, the manufacture of encapsulation film VA particles are also basically dependent on imports.
In order not to be controlled by others, we must master the core technology. At the same time, the final realisation of grid parity in photovoltaic power generation also requires technological progress to drive down costs.
In fact, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been organising the implementation of the PV Manufacturing Industry Specification Conditions since 2013, and has done two revisions in 2015 and 2018 to promote the restructuring and transformation and upgrading of the PV industry. Through channels such as industrial transformation and upgrading funds, it has increased support for technological innovation in the PV industry and supported PV enterprises to carry out manufacturing pilot demonstrations. The National Energy Administration has also promoted the application of advanced technology products through the implementation of the "runner-up" programme. 2017 saw the introduction of a technology runner-up base demonstration project to create market space for ultra-high efficiency cells. The implementation of this action plan will further promote the PV industry to the high-end.
"Along with China's economic shift to the stage of high-quality development, enterprises can not just pursue cost reduction or expand production capacity, more to consider how to continuously upgrade the industry, intelligent manufacturing is the necessary path." Qian Jing, vice president of JinkoSolar, said, from global sales to global manufacturing to global investment, is JinkoSolar's long-term strategy, to achieve rapid replication of factories around the world, it is inseparable from smart manufacturing.
In the view of Yang Liyou, general manager of JinkoSolar, the development of PV smart manufacturing can not only save labour costs and maintain China's advantage in manufacturing after gradually losing the demographic dividend, but also achieve the improvement of manufacturing product quality and the transformation of manufacturing to smart manufacturing. The general manager of Sumida Fairen, Zhao Xingguo, believes that the action plan can promote the development and updating of PV technology, and has a positive role to play in regulating the development of the PV industry towards intelligence and promoting the reduction of PV electricity costs.
It is worth noting that the action plan specifies the future development direction of the PV industry - automation, information technology, intelligence, to improve the competitiveness of the industry's hardware and software, to produce a large number of manufacturers and suppliers with excellent strength, to form a brand effect, to continuously improve the industrial development environment, so that China's PV industry out of the country, to the world, to the global industry. The industry will go global and move towards the middle and high end of the global industry value chain.
Wang Dong, General Manager of Heide PV, believes that the implementation of the action plan has put forward higher requirements for the development of the PV industry, and it is also a rare opportunity for PV enterprises and PV projects, especially distributed PV projects. Technological innovation and capacity upgrade will become the main direction for the future development of the industry, which needs to continuously improve its own technology level and move towards intelligence, information technology and automation.
For the photovoltaic industry, innovation does not only refer to technology research and development capabilities, power supply cost reduction and other manufacturing end of the innovation, the future of more innovation digging point to be in the application side. Qian Jing, for example, said that after the realization of grid parity for electricity, the market potential will explode. In addition, along with the emergence of new energy vehicles, smart homes, smart cities and other new industries, the photovoltaic industry needs to think about how to do some cross-border things, such as wireless charging of intelligent transportation, photovoltaic highways, and join hands with the Internet of Things to do smart homes, etc., will bring a lot of new business models.
