Photovoltaic companies look forward to "temporary treatment"

The oversupply of domestic solar cells and the international market have shrunk dramatically. In the past 2011, for Chinese PV companies, it was a period of “internal and external problems”.

In order to get rid of this downturn, domestic photovoltaic experts have provided "prescriptions" such as innovative technologies, improved conversion rates, and improved product quality.

However, although these proposals can fundamentally improve the current status of China's photovoltaic industry, for enterprises, they need to invest a lot of money and time. For most of the Chinese PV companies that have insufficient current capital and technology reserves, it is difficult to understand.

The reporter recently discovered in an interview that most Chinese PV companies hope to “treat the symptoms” first, and then “fix the symptoms”.

Wang Bufeng, director of the Shandong Runfeng Group New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from the China Science Journal that there are two external issues that PV needs to be resolved at present: First, financial institutions are not optimistic about the outlook of the PV industry; It is the state’s policy on photovoltaic companies that is relatively unstable. He believes that we should start by changing the concepts of financial institutions and adjusting national policies.

Financing caught in a "vicious circle"

At present, the difficulty of financing for photovoltaic companies in China is gradually increasing. According to statistics released by the China Investment Group, in 2010, a total of six photovoltaic companies in China were successfully listed, with a total financing of 1.116 billion U.S. dollars. As of November 2011, only three companies were listed, the total financing amount was only 544 million US dollars, and the amount of financing decreased by more than half. It is evident that the financing difficulties of photovoltaic companies have suddenly increased.

In response to this situation, Wang Bufeng said: "At present, photovoltaic companies and financing have almost fallen into a vicious cycle."

It is reported that the stagnant and grid-connected issues in the photovoltaic industry in 2011 have not been resolved. Both factors have affected the expectations of banks and other financial institutions regarding the industry's prospects, and have greatly reduced the enthusiasm of financial institutions for investing in and investing in the photovoltaic industry. Caused many PV companies to lack liquidity. The lack of funding for photovoltaic companies has led to their inability to undertake technological innovation and other aspects of investment, which in turn is to improve the market structure of the photovoltaic industry and even the prospects for development is very unfavorable, which in turn affects the expectations of banks and other financial institutions and investment, lending Enthusiasm. In the end, a problem of “chicken-egg, egg-chicken” emerged.

Wang Bufeng appealed to financial institutions headed by banks that they should take measures such as relaxing restrictions on the capital of photovoltaic companies to first solve this problem.

"After all, the prospects of the photovoltaic industry are unlimited." He believes that the problem of overcapacity in the photovoltaic industry is only temporary. On the one hand, solar energy occupies a negligible share of the current global energy consumption ratio. On the other hand, “unless new energy sources that are better than sunlight can be developed, the photovoltaic industry will never be surplus in the long run. ".

Industrial policy needs to be stabilized

In addition to financial institutions' lack of support for the photovoltaic industry, Wang Bufeng also believes that the current national policy on the photovoltaic industry needs to be stabilized. “In the past one year, more than 300 photovoltaic companies were newly added. This is largely the result of previous national policy care. Now the policy has begun to limit the development of photovoltaic companies. Frequent changes in policies have caused many PV companies to The direction of future development will be lost and it will be difficult to formulate long-term plans."

Wang Bufeng said that in recent years, the National Development and Reform Commission and other relevant departments have given great support to photovoltaic companies. On January 1, this year, Runfeng Group officially launched a 500 MW photovoltaic production and power generation project in Wuwei City, Gansu Province. In other regions, 600 megawatts of photovoltaic power plants are self-invested, but he hopes that the relevant authorities of the country can expeditiously define the effective period of the on-grid tariff policies for photovoltaic power generation.

It is understood that on July 24, 2011, the state announced the on-grid electricity price policy for solar photovoltaic power generation, which stipulates that solar photovoltaic power generation projects approved before July 1, 2011, completed and put into production on December 31, 2011, and have not yet been approved prices, The on-grid tariff is uniformly approved at 1.15 yuan per kWh; solar photovoltaic projects approved on or after July 1, 2011, and solar photovoltaics approved before July 1, 2011, but not yet completed and put into production as of December 31, 2011 For power generation projects, except for Tibet, which still implements the on-grid tariff of 1.15 yuan per kilowatt-hour, the on-grid tariffs of other provinces (regions and cities) are all implemented at the rate of 1 yuan per kilowatt-hour.

However, for the effective period of the on-grid tariff, the policy only states: “It will be adjusted according to factors such as changes in investment costs and technical progress.”

Wang Bufeng believes that this semantically vague expression makes it difficult for PV companies to predict long-term production profits, resulting in uncertainty in the future production scale and increasing the difficulty of their healthy development. “As in Europe, the government generally stipulates that the on-grid tariff is valid for 21 years, which allows PV companies to clearly calculate their future output in the next 20 years in order to obtain the best profits. Therefore, this still needs our country to learn and improve. of."