Photovoltaic companies have to expand production plans, the United States double-reverse or form new threats

With the deepening of the "double-reverse" investigation, there will be anti-dumping preliminary results at the end of July this year. If a higher anti-dumping tax is imposed, it will pose a new threat to Chinese enterprises.

While many PV companies reported positive results in the first quarter of this year, they also re-examined their existing production capacity and proposed to increase production targets.

Although the market has not returned to the extreme madness before 2008, both upstream polysilicon and downstream component manufacturers are implementing their own expansion strategies.

When expansion is in progress

GCL-Poly, the world's largest polysilicon producer, is the first to expand its production plan: it plans to expand the polysilicon scale from 65,000 tons to 70,000 tons by the end of 2014, and is expected to reach 85,000 tons in 2015. The production capacity of silicon wafers will also increase from the existing 12GW to 13GW.

TBEA started production of a new 12,000-ton polysilicon production line in October last year. The production capacity of the old line will also increase from 4,000 tons to 5,000 tons. It is expected that this year's output will be less than 8,000 tons last year, rising to over 17,000 tons. . At the SNEC, the world's largest photovoltaic exhibition, the head of the TBEA personally led the team to visit its downstream customer Longji shares to explore more cooperation between the two parties.

Another well-known polysilicon maker, Grand New Energy, also revealed that its polysilicon shipments last year were 4,240 tons, and it plans to expand its existing capacity in April this year.

In addition, Chongqing's local polysilicon plant is still undergoing technological transformation and is expected to be completed this year.

LDK will also restart the polysilicon project that has been discontinued for many years at the end of this month. Its planned production capacity is about 20,000 tons, but the actual finished product may still be slightly lower than this figure.

The expansion of downstream batteries and components is also quite hot.

Artes Solar's plan is to increase the total capacity of 2.6 GW to 3 GW. Among them, Changshu is one of the main expansion bases; Jingao Solar has expanded to 2.8GW based on the original battery capacity of 2.5GW and component capacity of 1.8GW.

"The demand in China and other global markets is an important driving force for the improvement of PV modules and polysilicon production capacity. This is definitely the driving force for many companies to expand production." Guotai Junan analyst Hou Wentao told the "First Financial Daily" reporter, 2013 Global component demand has increased by about 20% in the year, and it is expected to maintain a growth rate of 20% to 30% this year. Moreover, the total installed capacity of photovoltaics in the world is also based on 37G watts in 2013, and it will increase to about 45G watts in 2014, which will increase greatly.

According to the analysis of Orient Securities, this year's overall demand, more demand increase will come from China, Japan, the United States and other three places, and from 2014 to 2016 have a greater increase. Of course, Europe has also changed its past sluggish situation and may bottom out.

A senior executive of China Light and Power PV told this reporter that this year the company will focus on developing photovoltaic markets in Europe such as the United Kingdom and Turkey, focusing on power station construction. The factories in Turkey and China will also use existing PV modules to supply raw materials to the European market in order to build more PV power plant projects as soon as possible.

Price geometry?

Zhu Lishan, chairman of GCL-Poly, told the reporter of China Business News that the demand for polysilicon capacity is already in a relatively tight state. Polysilicon supply may be in short supply this year and next year, so GCL-Poly plans to expand production capacity again with sufficient capacity.

However, another management of the company also said that the price of polysilicon is indeed rising, from 18 to 19 US dollars / kg at the end of last year, climbing to 22 US dollars / kg, the future may rise further as demand increases.

“The overall production capacity of polysilicon is about 280,000 tons, which is about 10% compared with last year. However, the demand growth in the end market is higher than this figure, which is about 20%, so the price of polysilicon is expected to increase again.” .

Since the expansion of polysilicon generally takes 2 years, so in the past few years when the photovoltaic momentum has warmed up, even if new polysilicon manufacturers want to join it, after calculating the time cost, they will find that at least a few short-term gains are still in the mainstream polysilicon plant. .

However, the aforementioned GCL-Poly people also said that the price balance of polysilicon is not easy to break. "After all, the overall market price has been much more stable than the crazy time period a few years ago. If you go to raise the price, you can only let some The small polysilicon plant is restored. In this case, the pricing power is not in the hands of the big companies. It is bound to enter the new round of price wars. Therefore, the best way is to raise the price a little bit, so that it may not break. Supply and demand balance."

At present, the market share of several large polysilicon companies in China is around 70%.

Overcapacity?

Although a large number of expansions can seize market share, it is not uncomfortable to worry about whether there will be a problem of excess components after a while.

The global component supply is around 40GW, and if PV installations can get 45GW this year, more than 10% of the expansion components should be reasonable. But assuming that some existing companies have expanded to 20%, then the contradiction between supply and demand will become more prominent. The sharp increase in supply will inevitably cause prices to continue to fall, and some companies that have just recovered will suffer a lot of losses.

"The other side of the coin" also includes the "double-reverse" investigation being carried out in the United States, and its impact on the photovoltaic industry cannot be ignored.

The mainstream shipments of first-line mainstream companies in the US have accounted for 25% to 45% of the total shipments of each company. The United States is already one of the largest PV installers in the world. With the deepening of the "double-reverse" investigation, there will be anti-dumping preliminary ruling results at the end of July this year. If a higher anti-dumping tax is imposed, it will pose a new threat to Chinese enterprises.

The main target of the US anti-dumping is the battery and component products exported to the United States in mainland China and Taiwan, which was launched at the beginning of this year. Assuming that the “double-reverse” tax is imposed, the original Chinese mainland manufacturer’s way of bypassing Taiwan to avoid taxation by the United States was suddenly blocked. Companies have to process batteries and components from other sources, such as Canada and neighboring Asian countries, and then supply them to the United States. As a result, the expansion of existing PV module capacity (especially in the mainland) is somewhat rushed.

"Everyone is eager to expand production. The purpose is that, first of all, some companies have turned to safety and have certain financing capabilities, so they will finance financial institutions and stock markets by expanding their activities. Second, in order to make their scale effect stand out, Further reducing their own costs and getting more convincing prices, PV companies are also looking for a path to expand production. In the end, in the future, the photovoltaic industry will have to rely on cheap policies to achieve a cheaper Internet access, not to mention the current expansion of the market when the market is better. Production, when will it be?" Hou Wentao told this reporter.