On the same day that Longji announced its full bet on BC battery technology, Jinko leaked news that the company was still firmly optimistic that TOPCon would be the mainstream technology in the next 3-5 years. For this statement, Tianhe also pointed out that TOPCon still has advantages as the most cost-effective technology route at present.
The text is as follows:
At present, Longji has clearly focused on the BC technology route, and the pace of production expansion has been significantly accelerated. The company's next products will adopt the BC technology route. With the emergence of BC battery in the market, it is believed that it will gradually replace TOPCon. In the next 5-6 years, BC batteries will be the absolute mainstream of crystalline silicon batteries. "At today's (September 5) semi-annual results conference call, Longji Green Energy said when asked by investors.".
Affected by this news, on today's market, photovoltaic concept stocks rebounded, BC batteries led the rise, Shichuang Energy rose more than 12%, Haimuxing rose more than 9%, CITIC Bo rose more than 4%.
Longji Green Energy is firm in betting on the BC battery route, but there are also supporters of other routes in the industry. Today, the staff of Jingke Energy Securities Department told the reporter of New Energy Daily that they are firmly optimistic that TOPCon will be the mainstream of technology in the next 3-5 years. For BC battery, the staff member said frankly: "The company also has relevant technical reserves for BC. In our view, (BC battery) is relatively more beautiful, and may have its own market space in distributed and other aspects."
Trina Solar also told the New Energy Daily reporter: " (BC battery) investment depends on the cost performance. At present, it mainly focuses on TOPCon, which is the most cost-effective technical route under the company's comprehensive consideration.". "
Atlas related sources pointed out:" I have not heard that the company has a layout of BC batteries, there may be research, but there is no promotion at present. "
BC cells have both efficiency and appearance advantages
, but there are still some problems
to be solved. According to the data, BC cells are called full-back electrode contact crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. In addition to the main product HPBC at this stage, It also includes HBC (heterojunction back contact), TBC (tunneling oxide passivation back contact) and other technical branches.
At present, the attitude of mainstream photovoltaic manufacturers towards BC battery technology is more differentiated . The corresponding main component products in the industry include: HPBC of Longji Green Energy, ABC of Aixu, IBC of Maxeon, etc.
"Many companies are making BC batteries, mainly to solve optical problems.". It eliminates all the metal shading on the front side, thus improving the efficiency of solar cells. Some practitioners in the photovoltaic field told the reporter of New Energy Daily.
At present, the conversion efficiency of xBC modules (small K note: xBC is a general term for all kinds of BC cells/modules) generally falls in the range of 22.3% -24.2%, the first year attenuation is ≤ 1%, and the temperature coefficient is -0.24%/℃ to -0.29%/℃; The traditional PERC has a conversion efficiency of about 21.4%, an attenuation of 2% in the first year, and a temperature coefficient of -0.
Therefore, with the dual support of efficiency and appearance advantages, BC batteries currently on the market have a significant premium over PERC. Pi Xiu, an analyst at Ping An Securities in
China, believes that distributed photovoltaic power plants have a high tolerance for component prices, and BC battery components are expected to gain a higher premium for their high efficiency, beauty, safety and reliability in the high-end distributed household and industrial and commercial markets, especially in the high-end markets in Europe and the United States. In the relevant research report
, CICC said that BC is expected to gain a certain market share in the distributed scenario by giving full play to its advantages of high efficiency and high beauty, and whether the impact of investment cost and operation yield on production cost can be covered by sales premium will determine the actual rhythm of product volume.
However, it should be noted that BC batteries also have problems to be solved, such as high difficulty in technology implementation and difficult cost control.
BC Battery VS TOPC
on Coexistence or Replacement?
So, how to view the relationship between BC battery and TOPCon? "This technology platform can be combined with various battery structures of PERC and IBC to obtain different battery technologies, such as PBC battery technology, TBC battery technology, etc." The above-mentioned practitioners in the
photovoltaic field further explained: "Based on this premise, we can expand the whole TOPCon technology route to further make BC batteries, and then to the next step, TOPCon batteries are combined with thin film batteries to form laminated batteries to further improve the efficiency of the whole battery."
Another industry told the New Energy Daily reporter: "BC is not juxtaposed with heterojunction and TOPCon.". BC is another dimension (product), which means that BC can be made with TOPCon structure or heterojunction structure.
As for Longji's bet on BC batteries, in the view of the above-mentioned industry insiders, "BC battery structure has obvious advantages in specific scenarios such as distribution, and the distributed market is large, superimposed Longji has R & D advantages, so it is expected that Longji's positioning is to occupy the mainstream in the distributed market."
In addition to Longji Green Energy, many companies in the industry have laid out BC battery products and reserved related technologies. According to the incomplete collation of the New Energy Daily, The main enterprises and their product performances are:
In terms of the overall market size, Guojin Securities estimates that the domestic production capacity of xBC batteries is expected to reach 44 GW in 2023, with shipments of about 20 GW.
From the upstream link of the industrial chain, the material side may benefit from the expansion of photovoltaic cells. Today, Shichuang Energy told New Energy Daily: 95% of the additive materials in Longji are our (products). But from the material level, it mainly depends on the size of the battery, not on which technical route. Because no matter what technology it expands, it may eventually use our materials.
Haimuxing told New Energy Daily: "The company has technical reserves related to BC batteries, and there are a small number of customers.". This (BC battery) is the direction set by Longji, but it does not say that it has formed a scale and has done a good job.
According to the analysis of Xu Qiaowei team of Guotai Junan Securities, BC battery production line has obvious demand for laser equipment. "In the process flow of BC battery, the preparation process includes two slotting steps.". Laser non-destructive ablation technology can realize the precise ablation of P \ N passivation film on the back, replace the traditional photolithography route and simplify the process.
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