In the second half of 2020, the price of photovoltaic glass rose rapidly, driven by tight supply and demand, and the price rose nearly 80% in less than half a year. Since March 2021, the price of photovoltaic glass has fallen to a historical low, but according to CPIA estimates, with the newly installed capacity of about 55GW this year, less than 10GW was completed in the first half of the year. Glass prices are expected to rebound slightly.

In 2021, the new expansion project of photovoltaic glass will invest nearly 45 billion

According to incomplete statistics in the industry, since 2021, photovoltaic glass companies have announced at least 12 major photovoltaic glass expansion projects, with a total investment of nearly 45 billion yuan. The first two projects have an investment of more than 10 billion yuan and belong to Triumph Group and Rainbow New Energy. However, it should be noted that the release time of photovoltaic glass production capacity is relatively long, and the general construction period is 1.5-2 years. Therefore, the projects that have expanded production this year are not expected to be fully released until 2023, so it is difficult to effectively alleviate the situation of production capacity supply in the short term.

Then, the price of photovoltaic glass is expected to rebound slightly in the second half of 2021. However, in the long run, the new production capacity of the industry in 2022-2023 will be relatively large, and the projects expanded this year can be released by 2023, so it is expected that the price of photovoltaic glass may continue to decline in 2022-2023.

The scenery of photovoltaic glass is still the same, and the profits of enterprises are intensified and differentiated

Among the 9 upstream raw material and auxiliary material companies that have announced their performance in the first half of 2021, photovoltaic glass companies performed well. Among them, Jinjing Technology soared by 930.52%, which is the company with the largest increase in net profit among the 35 photovoltaic companies in the statistics. Others such as Kibing Group’s net profit increased by more than three times, and CSG A’s net profit increased by more than 2 times.

As one of the most profitable industries in 2020, photovoltaic glass is one of the most profitable industries. Although the price has almost halved this year, photovoltaic glass companies are still in their sights, but the profitability of enterprises has begun to differentiate, and leading enterprises with raw material cost advantages and production capacity advantages continue to be profitable. promote.

Among them, Jinjing Technology, which ranked first in net profit growth, stated in the announcement that the company started to invest in the construction of 500t/d thin-film photovoltaic module backplane glass in Malaysia in 2018 and supporting in-line tempered deep processing production lines, of which 5 are supporting in-line tempering. The deep processing production line was officially put into operation on July 1, 2021, and a 600t/d one-kiln three-line photovoltaic light-weight panel production line under construction in Ningxia Jinjing is expected to be put into operation within this year. Moreover, at present, the company has formed an industrial chain of mining/soda ash-glass-glass deep processing. In the future, with the continuous increase of the proportion of deep processing products such as photovoltaic glass, the industrial advantages will become more and more obvious in the future competition.

Kibing Group stated in the announcement that the prosperity of the glass industry has further improved, both volume and price have risen, and the overall profitability of the industry has improved. The company's industrial chain integrated operation and differentiated marketing strategy effectively control production costs and improve profitability. At present, Kibing Group not only has the cost advantage of soda ash centralized procurement at the photovoltaic raw material end, but also has a self-sufficiency rate of 40% of ultra-white quartz sand. The five new kiln production lines planned to be built are all 1200t/d large kilns, which can meet the needs of wide The single-line production scale exceeds that of leading enterprises such as Xinyi Solar and Follite. On the contrary, Xiuqiang shares stated in the performance report that the reason for the decline in the company's operating profit was the adverse impact of the sharp rise in the price of glass raw materials.

Polysilicon profits are improving, cost pressure is moving down

In the areas of polysilicon, silicon wafers, cells and components, a total of 9 companies announced their results, of which 6 companies achieved positive growth in net profit. Among them, the two polysilicon net profits ranked first and second respectively, TBEA’s net profit is expected to increase by 230%-250% year-on-year, and Tongwei’s net profit is expected to increase by 177%-197% year-on-year.

In 2021, the price of polysilicon materials has reached a new high for 19 consecutive weeks due to tight supply. According to data from pvinfolink, the quotation of dense materials in August rose by 140.48% compared with the beginning of the year. The continuous jump in the price of silicon material has brought huge profit margins to polysilicon enterprises.

TBEA stated in the announcement that one of the main reasons for the growth in performance was that the sales volume of polysilicon products during the reporting period increased compared with the same period in 2020, and the price of polysilicon increased significantly year-on-year. increase. According to the analysis of Ping An Securities, Tongwei's high performance in the second quarter was mainly due to the increase in the profit of silicon materials. It is expected that the average sales price of silicon materials in the second quarter will increase by about 50% year-on-year compared with the first quarter.

However, the sharp rise in the price of polysilicon has pushed up the cost pressure and began to pass down, resulting in an increase in the procurement cost of raw materials for downstream enterprises such as batteries and modules. Aixu shares stated in the performance forecast that due to the accelerated growth of raw material silicon wafers, and the slow transmission of cost pressure in the cell link to downstream customers, the gross profit margin of the main business has dropped significantly. Zhongli Group stated that the highest cumulative increase in the price of photovoltaic silicon materials in the first half of the year exceeded 100%, resulting in a significant drop in the company's photovoltaic module gross profit margin, and to a certain extent, affecting the production of the company's two new production bases in Zibo and Siyang. out.

Photovoltaic equipment enterprises stand on the top

Among the 8 equipment companies, 1 photovoltaic bracket and 1 inverter company that have announced their performance in the first half of 2021, the net profit of the company has all achieved positive growth, with the largest increase in net profit exceeding 8 times.

In recent years, as the technology of photovoltaic equipment enterprises has become more and more mature and nationalized substitution has accelerated, the equipment enterprise industry, which is standing at the expansion point of the photovoltaic industry chain and the iterative demand of stock technology, has ushered in a huge opportunity for development. Photovoltaic equipment companies have sufficient orders on hand, and their performance and profits have risen together.

Maiwei recently announced that it has signed orders of nearly 1.2 billion yuan with "Tongwei" companies. Tongwei is a leading company in battery chips. In 2021, Shuangliang Energy Conservation has signed orders for reduction furnaces and related equipment with Daquan, Tongwei, Xinte, Lihao and other silicon material enterprises. Shuangliang Energy Conservation stated in the announcement that with the acceleration of the expansion of the polysilicon industry, the reduction furnace orders have increased rapidly, which is the largest source of profit, and the reduction furnace business revenue is expected to continue to grow in the second half of the year. In the first half of the year, Otway's orders in hand reached about 3.178 billion yuan, an increase of 84.02% year-on-year.

Follett signs 25.2 billion orders with LONGi, JA Solar and Risen Energy

In early August, Follett announced that the company and JA Technology signed a "Strategic Cooperation Agreement" on the sales of photovoltaic glass. The agreement stipulates that JA Technology and its designated holding company are expected to sell to Follett and its designated wholly-owned holding company. In the three years from 2021 to 2024, about 230 million square meters of photovoltaic rolled glass for modules will be purchased. At the same time, since the beginning of this year, Follett has signed agreements with Risen Energy and LONGi, respectively, to sell 34GW (about 234 million square meters) of photovoltaic rolled glass for modules and 46GW of photovoltaic glass for photovoltaic modules, with orders amounting to 8.909 billion yuan and 11.7 billion yuan respectively. Yuan.

In recent years, the long-term lock-in output of the photovoltaic industry has become a common topic in the industry. Taking LONGi as an example, since 2020, it has signed a total of 563,900 tons of polysilicon long orders with a number of silicon materials companies, and signed a long list of photovoltaic glass procurement contracts with 5 companies including Jinjing Technology, Flat, Deli, CSG A, and Xinyi Solar. The list directly shows that supply chain management has become an important issue in the industry.

The production line planning of some photovoltaic glass manufacturers is expected to be put into production before 2023

From the perspective of photovoltaic glass production capacity over the years, Xinyi Solar and Follett have always ranked the highest in production capacity. This year, Xinyi Solar, Follett, Luoyang Glass, and Almaden have all expanded their production capacity. From the perspective of production capacity climbing, they are expected to start production before 2023. The actual production capacities of Xinyi Solar and Follett are 10,800t/d and 9,200t/d respectively. Two 1,000t/d production lines of Follett Fengyang, Anhui Province will be put into operation in the second half of 2021. The domestic planned and under-construction production capacity totals 8,400 t/d, and the total production capacity will be 12,200 and 18,200 t/d in 2021 and 2022.

According to CPIA forecast, the penetration rate of double glass will increase from 30% in 2020 to 60% by 2025; the thickness of 2.5mm/2.0mm in double glass is expected to be adjusted from 80%/20% in 2019 to 0%/100 respectively. %. Double glass is a major trend, and 2.0mm is the ultimate choice generally expected by the industry, and it is gradually transitioning from 3.2 to 2.5 to 2.0mm.

At the same time, according to the calculation of CITIC Construction Securities, according to the calculation of 85% yield rate of photovoltaic glass, 90% yield rate of deep processing and 19.8% conversion efficiency, if a 1000t/d photovoltaic glass production line produces single glass with a thickness of 3.2mm, it corresponds to 6.9GW of glass. Annual photovoltaic installed capacity; if double glass with a thickness of 2.0mm is produced, it corresponds to an installed capacity of 5.5GW. Therefore, by 2025, if all the ultra-clear float glass currently converted from photovoltaic glass is transferred from photovoltaic glass to architectural and automotive glass, the production capacity of ultra-clear rolled glass will be 111,571t/d, which can support the global photovoltaic installed capacity of 657GW per year.

Power station companies focus on new energy strategic goals

Among the 7 power station development and operation companies that have announced their performance forecasts for the first half of 2021, 6 companies have increased their net profits and 1 company's profits have declined.

It is worth mentioning that under the goals of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutrality", the company's new energy strategic goals are more focused. Among the power station companies in this statistics, Baofeng Energy has the largest increase in net profit. As a traditional coal chemical company, it has accelerated the development of hydrogen energy in recent years, emphasizing the replacement of fossil energy with new energy. After Roshow divested its energy-saving motor business, it focused on its main business and maintained stable growth in its photovoltaic power generation business. In addition to the traditional chemical industry, Jiahua Energy has deployed photovoltaic and hydrogen energy, and the profit of photovoltaic power generation projects has begun to increase.