l'Actualité du Solaire

What has happened to the photovoltaic industry abroad?

Abroad, in Taiwan

Abroad, in Korea

Abroad, in the United States

Abroad, in Europe

In France

Small manufacturers suffer

The Meyer Burger and REC Group projects

Some blablas

Renewable energies are losing ground to nuclear power for climate protection

The renewable energy-nuclear war is under way and is leaning in favour of the atom

At the time of the end-of-year balance sheets, there was an update on the evolution of the Chinese panel manufacturers two weeks ago; then the evolution of the demand for electricity, notably in France during the pandemic last week. It remains to examine the PV industry in France at the end of the year while the news is occupied by a future panel production plant in Hambach (Moselle) of REC Group. This company has a big ambition, that of launching a 2 GW unit. This occupies so much of the minds that it is necessary to look at what has happened industrially in the world and how the few French panel manufacturers who believed or still believe in the solicitude of the public authorities are evolving.

What has happened in the photovoltaic industry abroad?

Abroad, in Taiwan

The Chinese have "cleaned up" Taiwanese industry in the years 2018-2019. This industry had specialised in wafers and especially cells, which placed one of its companies among the three largest in the world. Obviously, these companies depended both on silicon manufacturers, on wafer production for some, and on panel assemblers. When the Chinese wanted to increase their world domination, they (in a coordinated and systematic way) offered subcontracting or purchase contracts for finished products at cost price or at a loss. All that was left was for cell manufacturers to disappear or sell at a loss, which only slowed the process down. Above all, it deprived the Taiwanese of the financial resources to invest in new machinery or technology. For example, they stayed too long sawing silicon ingots with the mud saw, failing to switch to diamond sawing. Gradually, Taiwan's thriving ingot-cutting industry collapsed. The major cell manufacturers, which were renowned, depended on the panel manufacturers. The Chinese then limited their purchases or offered prices that were too low: the cell manufacturers disappeared. There are only a few manufacturers left, who realised too late that they had to cover the entire sector and above all have access to the end customer, the panel buyer. The Taiwanese industry now only serves solar power plant installers on the island. They would like to build up a sales network abroad.

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Abroad, in Korea

Until two years ago, Korea was one of the world's most important silicon-producing countries. OCI was renowned for the purity of its product. A dozen other manufacturers followed in its wake. The Chinese gradually increased their import tariffs, in order to leave room and demand for their own production. The progressive and regular increase in customs duties has taken the quality of Korean products. The companies stopped one after the other. Even OIC now has only one factory in Malaysia, after having stopped its furnaces in Korea.

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Abroad, in the United States

The United States has also been "cleaned up" by the low price policy organised by the Chinese. In 2017, only SolarWorld América and Suniva were left as producers. That's when D. Trump imposed customs duties. Unfortunately, he organised a "reconquest" by limiting himself to the production of panels and importing 2.5 GW of cells free of customs duties. Despite all the criticisms of this tariff protection, national production rose to 4 GW, but this is not enough because it would have been necessary to organise the sector as well, that is to say to-i.e. to support the REC Silicon factory which is in the process of dying out following the customs duties imposed by the Chinese; to cover the two stages of production, cutting ingots and the manufacture of cells. D. Trump's action has led to the rebuilding of a panel production capacity of around 4 GW (on an annual demand of 12 to 18 GW), but to neglect the rest, which allows the Chinese, the only producers in the sector, to make the prices they want since they have no non-Chinese competitors. However, the leaders of the Chinese companies are all members of the Communist Party from which they receive their strategic orders.

Abroad, in Europe

The Chinese did not act differently in Europe. With a sales price 10-20% cheaper than manufacturers on the Old Continent, they have gradually eliminated German industry in the years 2010-2012. The German industry was unable to align its prices. Even if they had succeeded in doing so, with the aim of destroying German industry, Chinese prices would have been reduced further. Having no serious industrial competitors since the collapse of Germany's SolarWorld, they can now agree to set prices in Europe, with good profit margins.

China now produces 85% of the world's panels.

In France

At a time when the panel production unit in China is around ten gigawatts and each gigawatt added in a factory is cheaper than the previous gigawatt, European and French manufacturers are making a fig leaf, with a few hundred megawatts of capacity per year. The annual production is not known. Thus, Voltec Solar has a capacity of 200 MW, Recom-Silla 300 MW of panels in France (the Recom group produces in Poland, cells in Italy and would have created a production unit of 300 MW in Belarus at the end of 2019). DualSun, which manufactures panels in the Ain region, has chosen to subcontract its new range to China. Photowatt would have a silicon and wafer production capacity of 150 MW per year. It uses an innovative technology to crystallise the silicon. Since its announcement in March 2019, little information has filtered through on the technical success and profitability of this technology.

Small manufacturers are suffering

It seems that if the years 2015/2017 have been rather satisfactory for the growth of production and the profitability of the French factories (i.e. until the end of the single European price of September 2017), the last few years have been more or less satisfactory for the growth of production and the profitability of the French factories (i.e. until the end of the single European price of September 2017).The last few years have been much more difficult for them, with regular changes of management, with an omission of publication of the annual accounts, and also a failure to update the websites, which means that they have something else more important to do. It's as if the operating conditions of these companies were under pressure, gently and without saying anything, from Chinese prices, in order to eliminate them.

Faced with this pressure on prices and the desire to eliminate, French officials swear by the next step, in this case heterojunction. However, to our knowledge, the cost of this production is much higher than the traditional P-type mono-PERC cell. Moreover, if each one announces a significant increase in the conversion rate, from the outside the result is not obvious because we are talking about 24.1 % on this technology against 21 to 22 %. As the price is much higher, the products do not sell, the factories cannot increase their productivity and the attempt is futile. So, the researchers announce the brilliant future of tandem cells. However and for the moment, many problems of maintaining performance in case of humidity or contact with air still arise. This is still delaying the production of Oxford PV.

Isn't it a mistake to try to develop a technology ahead of its time in order to impose it? The Chinese, no more idiotic than the Westerners, are also thinking about it and developing modern processes or technologies. As if Westerners were smarter than the Chinese!!!

The project of Meyer Burger and REC Group

With this ambition to be ahead of its time, Meyer Burger wants to use its technologies to set up a production capacity of 400 MW in the first half of 2021, with the ambition to increase this capacity to 5 GW in the future. However, the company is starting from scratch in this respect. It has to install its machines, stall them, reorganise its administrative, commercial and financial departments. Even starting from the bottom (400 MW), the bet is far from being won, even if we have to hope so.

Another project that mobilises all the commentators and discouraging voices in France is the REC Group's desire to set up a 2 GW factory in Lorraine, which would start production in 2022 with the objective of doubling capacity in three years. This company already has a 1.8 GW production unit (including 600 MW heterojunction) in Singapore. The project seems serious because it is carried by a company that already knows the market and has its own marketing network. It is also based on a technological breakthrough with new generation panels.

What the promoters of these two projects probably underestimate is the reaction of the Chinese on the one hand to its supplies and on the other hand when the panels are put on the market (in case of failure, one must carry out one's strategy while paying attention to the other's).

Given the importance of the Chinese hold in the sector, purchases of wafers must be made at a good price. At least at market price. There is nothing to say that the Chinese will not sell their wafers 10% to 20% more expensive in order to penalise the cost price of the cells and therefore of the panels from the outset. This is a risk that is difficult to assess.

The other most likely risk is that the Chinese will do everything possible to make the panels of these two "new" companies unaffordable. All they have to do is lower their prices in Europe by 15 to 25% compared to those of Meyer Burger or REC Group. It is easy for them to lose money in one area and make up for it in other parts of the world. This is the policy they have pursued in all the regions they wanted to "clean up" of their previously well-established manufacturers. The new producers would then find it very difficult to sell and therefore to amortise their start-up costs and would not achieve the economies of scale they expected. Have the two newcomers taken this probability into account? Will they be able to wage a price war?

While we must of course wish the best possible future to existing companies as well as those to be created, we must realise that attempts are being made, but that they are struggling to establish themselves. It is not the will and determination of the leaders that is lacking, but the institutional framework (customs duties). It is worth noting that on 15 October 2020, the managers of the French factories launched an appeal to protect themselves from Chinese imports, which represent 80% of the installations in France. The result is apparently nil. However, the restoration of panel production in Europe will inevitably involve the restoration of customs borders allowing manufacturers to set up, build up their commercial networks and then lower their prices.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah

The French and European public authorities are never short of good words, congratulations and fine speeches, but nothing comes. Who would dare to evoke the favourable consequences of "Place au Soleil" which dates from ... June 2018? Who has analysed the effects of the abolition of European minimum prices in September 2017? As well as the difficulties it has caused for manufacturers?

In April 2019, the Court of Auditors pointed out to the government that it needed a more coherent strategy for renewable energy, particularly photovoltaic energy.

In June 2019, the Minister for the Economy and the Minister for the Environment presented a programme to encourage the manufacture of PV panels. The government announced that it wanted to legislate so that French and European rules would free up large-scale investment in the manufacture of photovoltaic systems. These two "high" figures foresaw that the players in the sector, under the leadership of EDF, companies and associations would contribute by sharing their knowledge of market trends. The project included closer links between French and European research institutes. Having delivered their speeches, the ministers felt that their task was complete. We no longer heard about their organisation being developed in ministerial offices, i.e. above ground.

The Syndicat des Energies Renouvelable on 13 May 2020 believes that the reconstruction of European panel production is necessary. What is the follow-up?

After the disruption of Chinese panel deliveries in the first quarter of 2020, some people are asking for the reconstitution of an industry in the PV sector. Thus, on 15 May 2020, eight European countries (ONLY) call on the Commission to give industrial revival to PV. Among the signatories we do not find France (what was E. Borne our minister at the time thinking of?), nor Germany, nor Italy... How could the Commission accept this absence of official request? However, the Commission responded by announcing a Great Green Plan at the end of May, which was quickly buried by the reluctance of certain EU countries attached to fossil fuels. The 15 GW announced remain in the boxes. The result is a climate law that makes no reference to renewable energies. But how can this be achieved then?

In October 2020, a new European initiative, called PV Trust, is interested in developing distributed installations, but no industry is participating.

Renewable energy is losing ground to nuclear power for climate protection

Ecological, nuclear and financial pressure groups seem to be mainly concerned with global warming. They are much less concerned about solar installations, and even less about the origin of solar panels or batteries. Thus, the President of the French Republic has just affirmed that RE has the disadvantage of being intermittent, that France needed permanent energy, and that only the good, beautiful and sustainable nuclear energy could provide the necessary energy. As if to confirm this implicit decision, during the presentation of the hydrogen plan, at no time did the ministers pronounce the word solar, wind and renewable energies: without wanting to say it, EDF and its nuclear power corresponded to the future of France. Renewable energies, taken seriously abroad, are considered as a French toy to amuse the ecologists.

The renewable energy-nuclear war is underway and is leaning in favour of the atom.

The EnR-nuclear power balance of power is not yet complete, but the end of 2020 is grey for installers (suffice it to note that despite the calls for tenders, solar installations in France in the 3rd quarter are equivalent to ^those of 2019 (have they been voluntarily curbed?). The end of the year is gloomy for industrialists. They are marginalised behind the flood of daily news. This is the consequence of the fragmentation of the professional solar and wind energy representation, which follows divergent interests, the absence of representatives from the industry, and the lack of people who are able to react.This is the consequence of the fragmentation of the professional solar and wind energy representation, which follows divergent interests, the absence of network men within the French and European administrations, and also of the populism of the French leaders who do not know how to look beyond 2022, the next presidential election.

Here again, if we don't know how to organise ourselves, federate and demonstrate the advantages of RE, others know how to do it for the benefit of nuclear power and collect the results. Once again, we only get what we deserve.