In the context of fossil energy crisis, global climate governance, energy shortage and urgent security needs, photovoltaic and other "manufacturable" clean, low-carbon new energy is booming, and attracted many capital into the game. From the momentum of the development of the industry in the past two years, the global energy consumption demand is strong, the continuous investment in various aspects to ensure the structural transformation of energy, and the development of the photovoltaic industry is strong. Among them, the state has introduced long-term strategies and five-year plans to promote the development of renewable energy, and it is expected that the proportion of photovoltaic energy consumption will increase from 2% in 2020 to 6% in 2030 and 26% in 2060. Thirteen five (2016~2020) domestic PV actually completed 210GW installed capacity, exceeding the planned target completion rate of about 191%, driven by the photovoltaic leader plan, centralized installed capacity of 137.8GW, accounting for 66%. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021~2025), provinces and cities issued renewable energy development plans, and the photovoltaic installed capacity target totaled 475GW, supporting the implementation of carbon neutral goals and related strategies.

According to the report released by the China Photovoltaic Association, in the first half of this year, China's polysilicon, silicon wafers, cells and module production increased by more than 32% year-on-year, and the domestic photovoltaic installed capacity of 102.48 million kilowatts, an increase of 30.7%. In the first half of 2024, the domestic exports of silicon wafers, batteries and modules increased by 34.5%, 32.1% and 19.7%, respectively. However, as a cyclical industry, the photovoltaic industry has also encountered a new round of challenges. In the past 2-3 years, the shortage of silicon materials has caused the photovoltaic industry to enter an upward cycle, and the profits of the industrial chain have soared (0.18 yuan /W in June 20 → 0.78 yuan /W in November 21), attracting capital influx and government support, and a large number of cross-border and new players have entered the photovoltaic field. However, starting from 2022, as the photovoltaic industry gradually enters the surplus cycle, the profit of the industrial chain gradually declines, and the price of the industrial chain accelerates to decline in 2023, and the industry enters the loss range.

In the first half of this year, the overall decline in the price of the photovoltaic industry chain has become a trend that is difficult to reverse, and the photovoltaic industry performance loss has become a common phenomenon. According to the performance forecast released by TCL Central recently, the net loss of the first half of 2024 is expected to be 2.9 billion yuan to 3.2 billion yuan, and the net profit of the same period last year is 4.536 billion yuan. During the reporting period, the prices of major links such as silicon materials, silicon wafers and battery cells in the photovoltaic industry chain fell, and by the second quarter of 2024, various industrial links were basically in the state of selling prices and costs, general losses and even cash cost losses, and operating performance was under pressure. It is worth mentioning that under the pressure of the downward cycle, many enterprises have chosen to reduce production. In contrast, the operating rate of TCL Central is at a high level in the industry, and some factories are at full capacity. For this contrarian operation, the relevant person in charge of TCL Central said that even now the industry's production capacity has entered the stage of excess, but the demand for the entire industry is still increasing. Moreover, photovoltaic as an asset-heavy industry, the lower the operating rate, the greater the asset depreciation allocation. For different companies, their dimensions, asset size and strategy are different, so they will make different choices. In his view, if the operation rate continues to be extremely low, the pressure on enterprises will rise exponentially. Some enterprises may never reach full production after this wave of low operating rates. Not only that, in the current environment, maintaining a high operating rate will further enhance the cost advantage of TCL Central, and then increase the market share. According to the person in charge, TCL Central's market share was once diluted to 20%, and this year, its market share has been increasing, and the figure has exceeded 24% in the first half of the year, of which the market share has recovered to 30% in June. Of course, TCL Central will not always adhere to the high operating rate, "will be based on the market situation, to find a comprehensive production, sales, market share, profitability and other factors under the optimal solution." It should be pointed out that at present, the photovoltaic industry has entered the clearance stage and returned to technological innovation + cost control + cash reserves as the core of competition. In addition to the layout of products and business strategies, in the manufacturing and production links, it is also the key point of competition, one is the use of technology to achieve the upgrade of products and production lines, on the other hand, it is also the key to comprehensive competition such as cost and capacity.

In October 2023, through the technological upgrading and transformation of advanced Industry 4.0, TCL Central Crystal Phase 6 Smart Factory was selected as a national-level intelligent manufacturing demonstration factory, and realized a fully automated process from silicon to finished product delivery. According to the relevant person in charge of the factory, TCL Central Crystal Phase 6 smart Factory is currently the world's largest monocrystalline silicon production base with the highest degree of wisdom. The use of automation, digitalization, intelligent means to serve the manufacturing, through technological innovation and industry 4.0 manufacturing system integration, improve flexible manufacturing capabilities, the current crystal six factory square rod workshop black lighting rate of more than 90%. Among them, in the single crystal factory, through the air transport line, the raw materials have realized the whole process of clean transportation of filling materials. In the production process, through the intelligent filling system independently developed by Zhonghao, automatic delivery and execution of filling tasks, automatic replenishment of raw materials and crucible are realized. Official data show that in the TCL Central Crystal six smart factory, the per capita labor productivity reached 42 tons/day, more than 3 times higher than the same industry. The collaboration between humans and machines has also further increased the automation rate and reduced labor costs. At present, the automation rate of the overall crystal pulling process in crystal production has achieved more than 90%. The man-machine ratio of the core process increased from 4 units/person to 384 units/person. With the further production of the sixth phase of the crystal smart factory and the improvement of technical capabilities, the total production capacity of TCL Central crystal will reach 180GW by the end of 2023, continuing to maintain the first single crystal scale in the world.

The relevant person in charge of TCL Central pointed out that adhere to the promotion of Industry 4.0 manufacturing transformation for more than 7 years, based on the smart factory built by "Industry 4.0", big data and advanced algorithms have become the wisdom center that can autonomously control equipment, information and automation systems, and liberate people from repetitive labor to engage in more valuable and creative data iteration work. Bring back the value of people. At present, TCL Central has production bases in Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu and Tianjin. With the help of black light factories and smart parks, while realizing the transformation of intelligent manufacturing, TCL Central is also accelerating the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. In 2022, TCL Central implemented more than 40 energy conservation and consumption reduction projects, saving 50,214,500 KWH of electricity and 12,343,500 tons of water in the year. It is planned to build 2GW photovoltaic power station, which will produce about 3.2 billion KWH of green electricity annually. Construction of 30MW distributed power station in the park, the annual green electricity is about 36.798 million KWH.

In addition, the person in charge said that the attributes of the industry, determine the downcycle of the photovoltaic industry will not be too long, is expected to see signs of a turning point in the photovoltaic industry as early as the fourth quarter of this year. "In the Red Sea market, TCL Central relies on the relative competitiveness of cost, technology, manufacturing and products, and backs the group to make assets more efficient." In the blue ocean market, we must firmly go out and actively expand overseas markets." According to McKinsey's comparison of the strength of China and the United States in various fields, China is in an absolute leading position in the field of photovoltaic. In 2023, more than 80% of the production capacity of the photovoltaic industry chain will be concentrated in China. However, more than 60% of the global demand is concentrated overseas, for Chinese enterprises, going out has become a must, not to go out. At the same time, as the core link of the photovoltaic industry chain with heavy assets and the highest technical complexity, China occupies an absolute leading position in the global silicon field. According to CPIA statistics, 93.6% of the world's silicon material, 97.9% of silicon wafers, 83.4% of module production capacity are in China, and overseas silicon wafer industrial capacity, technical capacity, and capacity scale are more scarce than other links. In July, TCL Central signed a shareholder agreement with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Vision Industries, and the three parties will jointly invest in a joint venture company to promote the localized production of solar photovoltaic crystal chips in Saudi Arabia, with a total investment of about $2.08 billion. The three parties will invest and finance with TCL Central holding 40%, RELC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PIF holding 40%, and Vision Industries holding 20%. The layout in the Middle East is also an important part of TCL Central's overseas development, copying the experience of intelligent manufacturing in China's smart factories to overseas, from product output to technical standards output, and promoting the strategy of global localization. "Compared with markets such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East has different considerations due to geographical location and other factors, and the action now is also the key to achieving greater leadership in the next two to three years." TCL Central relevant person said.