Text: Reporter Ai Miao.
Since 2023, under the background of pressure on China's overall foreign trade situation, the traditional "old three" - clothing, furniture, and home appliance exports have declined, but the "new three" represented by new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products have shown a trend of rising against the trend and standing alone.
Behind the popularity of the "new three" is the general trend of China's promotion of industrial structure optimization and the rising of "green manufacturing" in recent years. Especially in the context of the "dual carbon" strategy in response to global climate change, China's new energy transformation process is accelerating.
Renewable energy is ushering in a period of rapid growth.
Recently, the International Energy Agency released the "2023 Renewable Energy" annual market report, showing that the global new renewable energy capacity in 2023 will increase by 50% compared with 2022, and the installed capacity will grow faster than at any time in the past 30 years. The report also shows that the global installed capacity of renewable energy will usher in a period of rapid growth in the next five years.
According to the latest "China Energy Economy Index Research and Prospects", since the energy economy began to pick up in 2020, the energy economy has experienced a rebound period for four consecutive years, reaching the highest level in history, becoming a "booster" for the macroeconomic rebound. In 2023, China's energy security will be steadily improved, the driving force of energy demand will be transformed, and rural clean heating will enter the stage of quality enhancement from scale expansion.
Tang Baojun, deputy director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Research Center of Beijing Institute of Technology, said that the analysis results show that some highly innovative industries such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation have been performing relatively well and are very stable, and have made great contributions to energy conservation and emission reduction under the condition of efficient development. He said: "For example, carbon emission reduction also has great potential for the development of the energy economy, which can enhance the autonomy and anti-risk ability of the energy economy." ”
In fact, the pace of green and low-carbon energy transformation is accelerating. As of the end of November 2013, the first batch has been completed and connected to the grid of 45.16 million kilowatts, and the second and third batches have been approved to more than 50 million kilowatts, and construction is under construction. The national wind and solar turbines exceeded 1 billion kilowatts, and the dominant position in the new installed power capacity was further consolidated, and the scale of household photovoltaic exceeded 100 million kilowatts, covering more than 5 million rural households. Wind power and photovoltaic power generation has exceeded the domestic electricity consumption of urban and rural residents in the same period, accounting for more than 15% of the total electricity consumption of the whole society.
Zhang Jianhua, director of the National Energy Administration, said that the key task in 2024 is to accelerate the construction of supporting regulatory power supply. Scientifically and rationally optimize the layout of coal power, arrange the necessary guarantee of power supply in areas with tight power warning in the next three years, and arrange a number of supporting support and regulation power supplies in large-scale wind and solar bases in combination with the preliminary work of transmission channels, and promote the projects that have been included in the plan to start construction and put into operation as soon as possible.
Technology iteration in the photovoltaic industry.
In 2023, the market environment of the photovoltaic industry will change significantly. Due to the changes in the supply and demand relationship of the photovoltaic market itself, the risk of overcapacity has intensified, and the iteration of new and old production capacity has intensified. The photovoltaic industry chain has continued to decline, and the bidding for modules has even fallen below 1 yuan, and the profitability of enterprises has declined sharply.
If there are industry buzzwords in 2023, I think one may be 'excess', and the other is 'price reduction'. Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, said.
Relevant data shows that the global PV module production capacity will exceed 1TW in 2023. Among them, China's photovoltaic production capacity accounts for more than 80%. This year, the global module demand** scale is 525GW.
With the further release of production capacity, the competition in the photovoltaic industry has intensified, ushering in a deep reshuffle. Market pressure is gradually transmitted to the entire industrial chain, and the operating rate has generally declined. In the case of PV overcapacity and record low modules, manufacturers with low production efficiency and backward production capacity will gradually be eliminated by the market. In addition, many companies that have crossed over into the photovoltaic field have begun to sell related projects and choose to leave.
Although the photovoltaic industry has overcapacity, it is precisely the booster of technological progress. Peng Wensheng, chief economist of CICC, said: "It is impossible for any industry to fully match capacity and demand at any point in time, and sometimes there will be overcapacity, but the increased competition brought about by overcapacity also means improved efficiency, which will promote further innovation, and after new products come out, demand will exceed the capacity of new products, which is the path of technological progress." ”
The industry unanimously agreed that it is necessary to focus on the high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry, strengthen the overall layout and policy implementation, accelerate the construction of supporting facilities, and expand industry applications. At the same time, we will continue to encourage innovation, promote industry enterprises to accelerate innovation and technological research, and return the competition of the photovoltaic industry to the main track of technological development.
The energy storage industry continues to deploy overseas.
The past 2023 is another big year for domestic renewable energy installations, with renewable energy installed capacity exceeding 14 during the year500 million kilowatts, and as the proportion of renewable energy in the grid continues to increase, energy storage, which has always been regarded as a key means to solve the problem of renewable energy volatility and intermittency, has also ushered in a year of explosive growth.
The person in charge of a large battery company in South China said that the fastest growing form of energy storage in the current market is mostly a new type of energy storage represented by lithium battery energy storage, and according to the different storage mediums, the technical path of the energy storage track can be divided into new energy storage and traditional energy storage, of which traditional energy storage is represented by pumped storage, which is suitable for the energy allocation of large power grids, and the new energy storage with short construction period, flexible site selection and fast response speed is more suitable for supporting renewable energy projects represented by wind power and photovoltaic.
Zhu Gongshan, chairman of GCL Group, said that overcapacity and manufacturing overcapacity are not entirely bad things, and overcapacity has brought about a decline in the industry and progress in the industry. The energy storage market will continue to expand after the reshuffle, and usher in an upward trend in high-quality development.
With the support of the policy level, the continuous cost reduction of batteries and other links in the industrial chain is also expected to promote the continuous growth of the energy storage industry. Liu Wei, Secretary-General of Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, said: "With the vigorous development of the energy storage industry, a series of policies have been introduced to distribute and store and participate in the power market mechanism, which will further promote the development of the energy storage industry. ”
As a pioneer in China's energy storage industry, CATL will expand its energy storage incremental business in overseas markets in 2024. It is reported that Western Australia has signed a contract worth more than 1 billion Australian dollars with CATL for about 950 containerized liquid-cooled battery energy storage systems, and the equipment will be used in the two largest battery energy storage projects planned to be deployed in Australia so far.
According to Cao Hui, chairman and president of Ruipu Lanjun, Ruipu Lanjun has a large number of overseas customers, and direct and indirect exports account for more than 60% of the entire company. He mentioned that the overseas market is an important part of Ruipu Lanjun's globalization, and he emphasized that there are many risks to consider when going overseas, and the company will consider Southeast Asia and Europe as the first regions to develop.