More than 130 participants took part in lively discussions on the most recent developments in the Chinese solar market at the PV Module and PV Power Plant Workshop China 2012, which was held in Shanghai on 30 and 31 October. Last year, China announced plans to install 5 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity by 2015 but has now revised these targets upwards, initially to 15 gigawatts and then to as much as 20 gigawatts. As a result, many of the workshops participants expect that China will soon overtake the German solar market.
Qin Haiyan, General Director of the China General Certification Center (CGC), stressed the fact that China had already succeeded in developing into the worlds largest wind energy market in an extremely short space of time, and he expects the Chinese solar market to follow suit. The speakers Dr Gao Hu, Deputy Director of Chinas National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and Qin Haiyan and Wang Sicheng, both from the CGC, gave an overview of China's efforts to strengthen its domestic photovoltaics market. These endeavours will see roof-mounted systems assuming increasingly greater significance.
During his presentation on the new objective to install 20 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity by 2015, the end date of the current 12th Five-Year Plan, Wang Sicheng explained that around half of this amount was expected to be covered by roof-mounted systems and half by large-scale photovoltaic installations. Roof-mounted systems are mainly found in the large urban centres of Eastern China, whilst large-scale photovoltaic installations are predominantly constructed in Western China, an area which enjoys higher levels of insolation.
The opening addresses were given by Eckhart Gouras, Managing Editor of pv magazine China and Executive Director of Solarpraxis AG China, and Ulrike Therhaag, Director of Solar/Fuel Cell Technology at TÜV Rheinland Shanghai. Solarpraxis AG and TÜV Rheinland were responsible for organising the workshop. The balance between cost control and quality control formed one of the workshops key topic areas.
Wang Sicheng pointed out that the sharp fall in the price of photovoltaic modules could in part be attributed to the drop in the price of polysilicon to US$22/kg. According to Sicheng, photovoltaic modules produced by conventional Chinese manufacturers currently sell for as little as RMB 3 (approximately 0.37) per watt, and those made by leading Chinese manufacturers have a starting price of RMB 3.77 (approximately 0.47) per watt. These current price levels mean that many Chinese module manufacturers are experiencing losses, resulting in the government driving forward the consolidation of the Chinese photovoltaics industry.
The workshops participants are still, however, unsure of how this consolidation will take place. One of the governments suggestions is that a list of the best manufacturers should be published by an official body, though this has met with resistance from the industry. The CTO of Yingli Green Energy, Dr Dengyuan Song, stressed that quality is the key to competitiveness in the market. The topic of quality was examined in more detail in sessions on photovoltaic materials and components. Dr Ivan Sinicco, Head of Development at Oerlikon Solar, believes standards need to be developed for photovoltaic glass to increase quality and lower costs in the long term, suggesting that a photovoltaic glass consortium be created for this purpose.
Oakland Fu from DuPont and Lewis Pan from 3M provided further insights into the latest developments in the photovoltaic materials market. The presentation given by Jianduo Li, the technical director of storage specialists Shanghai GMDE, also aroused a huge level of interest, with Li admitting that battery technology has failed to make its major breakthrough in the past three decades. He claimed that one reason for this was the fact that guarantees for batteries last for 15 years at most, whilst photovoltaic modules are guaranteed for 20 years and more. Despite this shortcoming, the workshops participants expected photovoltaic storage solutions to undergo considerable improvements in the coming years. On the second day of the workshop, the main focus switched to an animated discussion on the topic of bankability.
Both insurance companies and banks are still experiencing difficulties in insuring and financing solar projects in China. In spite of this, these companies are showing increasing interest in the industry and many took the opportunity to find out more about standards in Germany by attending presentations such as those given by Christian Leers, Accelios Solar, René Moerman, SolarIF, and Thomas C. Sauer, EXXERGY. The overall message of the event was that Chinas solar market is on the brink of change. The next workshop, entitled PV Project Implementation Conference, which is due to take place on 18 March 2013 in Shanghai, will further examine how this change is unfolding.
