In the first half of 2024, 102.48GW of new PV capacity will be installed, and module prices will continue to fall on the high-boom track, and owners' enthusiasm for stocking will continue to rise.
From January to July 2024, major power generation companies issued a total of module tenders for centralized procurement and decentralized PV module projects, with a total scale of more than 113GW, and if last year's uncalibrated centralized procurement projects are superimposed, the total scale is as high as 200GW, which is basically the same as the same period last year, marking that the PV industry continues to maintain a high operating trend.
At the same time, from January to July, about 164GW of PV modules were calibrated, and it is not difficult to find that some new trends are quietly forming by observing the dynamics of bidding and winning bids.
Among them, N-type products have basically completed the market replacement of P-type products and become the new favorite of the industry. Moreover, the price of TOPCon cells is already on par with PERC, and even lower than PERC cells in some bids. The price of HJT is on a downward trend in the industry as a whole, and although it maintains a certain premium, it also shows a downward trend as a whole.
In addition, as module price competition intensifies, end-users tend to prefer leading module companies with stronger strength and reputation, which further increases the market concentration in the module sector.
From the perspective of the main body of bidding, the "five large and six small" energy central enterprises are still large bidders, and their bidding and centralized procurement scale has shown an explosive growth trend under the double positive stimulus of the significant growth of installed capacity and the continuous decline in photovoltaic module prices.
Specifically, PowerChina led the bidding market with an overwhelming advantage, mainly due to the successful release of its large-scale 2024 PV module and inverter framework in December last year, which was included in 2024 (due to the project being rated in 2024, so it was counted in 2024), which has a scale of up to 42GW.
It was followed by China National Nuclear Corporation, which launched multiple rounds of large-scale centralized procurement activities through its subsidiaries such as CNNC (Nanjing), CNNC Huineng, Xinhua Electric Power and CNNC (Shanghai), with a total bidding and procurement scale of more than 20GW.
In addition, energy giants such as Jingneng Group, Huaneng Group, Huadian Group, and Datang Group have each exceeded 10GW, and China Coal Group, SDIC Group, China Resources Power, PetroChina, National Energy, Three Gorges Corporation and other enterprises have also tendered and collected procurement at a high level of more than 5GW, which together constitute the backbone of the energy bidding market.
From the perspective of bidding time, except for July, the monthly bidding is at the 10GW level.
Specifically, March and April are the traditional peak seasons for construction, and the bidding scale exceeded 20GW and 30GW respectively, during which many leading enterprises in the energy field such as Xinhua Power, China Nuclear Power (Nanjing), Three Gorges Corporation, Huadian Group, China Electrical Equipment Group, and Datang Group have launched large-scale bidding and centralized procurement projects.
In the following June, as a key node in the second half of the market stocking, State Power Investment Corporation, National Energy Group, China Nuclear Energy Group, China Coal Group, etc. launched their own bidding and centralized procurement work, with a bidding and centralized procurement scale of nearly 20GW.
The distribution of the bidding time is slightly different from the bidding, thanks to the fact that in November and December last year, PowerChina and Huaneng Group stocked up in advance for 2024, and the bidding scale in January was close to 60GW.
Corresponding to the bidding, May is also the peak season for bidding, during which Huadian Group, Datang Group, and China Energy Group have successively completed the bidding work for large-scale projects, with a total bidding scale of more than 30GW.
From January to July this year, the situation of the entire photovoltaic industry was severe, with the price of polysilicon and other links breaking through the cost line, and the module calibration price also continued to decline, basically at 0.7 yuan/W~0.8 yuan/W.
(Based on publicly available information statistics)
Specifically, at the beginning of this year, the average prices of P-type and N-type modules were RMB 0.892/W and RMB 0.94/W, respectively, but by July, the prices of P-type and N-type modules had flattened, falling to RMB 0.785/W.
Judging from the bidding projects in July, the prices of TOPCon and HJT both hit new lows:
In the Yalong River Basin Hydropower Development Co., Ltd.'s 2024 centralized procurement of photovoltaic modules, the lowest price of TOPCon has been 0.75 yuan/W!
China Nuclear Energy and Xinhua Power Generation 2024-2025 HJT photovoltaic module centralized procurement, HJT photovoltaic module minimum price is 0.81 yuan/W!
In 2024, the number of new entrants in the PV module market will decrease significantly, and the industry pattern will be further consolidated.
According to the in-depth analysis of Polaris Solar PV Network based on public data, the number of enterprises participating in the centralized procurement of photovoltaic modules of major central state-owned enterprises has shrunk to 42 this year, compared with 64 last year, the number has decreased significantly, and the trend of concentration to the leader is becoming more and more obvious.
(According to the statistics of public information, the top 18 module companies are counted according to the number of finalists in the figure above)
Specifically, only from the perspective of the number of finalists (excluding the specific scale of winning bids), Jinko, JA Solar, Trina, LONGi, Tongwei, Chint, Risen, Yiyi, and GCL are the enterprises with the most centralized procurement of central state-owned enterprises.
On the whole, first-tier PV companies represented by Jinko, LONGi, Trina Solar, JA Solar, and Chint continue to consolidate and expand their leading position in the market with their deep technology research and development capabilities, excellent cost control capabilities, and unremitting efforts in brand building. At the same time, new power enterprises such as Tongwei Co., Ltd., Yiyi New Energy, GCL Integration, etc., have emerged in the fierce market competition by virtue of technological innovation and unique differentiated competition strategies.
From the analysis of bidding products, N-type products have basically completed the replacement of P-type.
According to the incomplete statistics of Polaris Solar PV Network, in 2023, the bidding scale for centralized procurement of photovoltaic modules will be about 200GW, of which the bidding scale for p-type modules will only be about 20GW, accounting for only 10%. Most central state-owned enterprises have reduced the bidding and centralized procurement of p-type modules.
Since the beginning of this year, central enterprises such as Datang, Huadian, China Green Development, and China Power Construction have frequently released gigawatt-level purchase orders, and some central enterprises have even purchased HJT as a separate bid, such as Huaneng Group's 2024 photovoltaic module framework agreement procurement bidding - bid section 3, and the centralized procurement of heterojunction HJT photovoltaic module equipment in 2024-2025 by China Nuclear Huineng and Xinhua Power Generation.