Time: 2019/1/30 8:45:23 Source: Yicai Author: Views: 6 times

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In recent years, the development of China's photovoltaic industry has attracted worldwide attention. Large-scale industrial application and continuous strengthening of technology research and development have contributed to a substantial cost reduction. In 2007, the price of photovoltaic modules was about 30 yuan/watt, and in 2012, it dropped to about 10 yuan/watt. In 2017, the price has dropped to 2 Below RMB/Watt, roughly equivalent to doubling the cumulative installed capacity, the product cost is reduced by 35%. To a certain extent, this shows that the government's new energy subsidies are very effective. China's photovoltaic industry has grown from nothing to the world's largest scale and the most complete industrial chain.

The 531 New Deal was introduced, and the photovoltaic industry "brakes abruptly"

Since the introduction of the photovoltaic on-grid tariff policy, the scale of the photovoltaic industry has continued to expand. Especially in 2017, the photovoltaic industry showed explosive growth. China's cumulative photovoltaic installed grid-connected capacity reached 130.25GW, a year-on-year increase of 68%. Among them, the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic power plants was 100.59GW, and the cumulative installed capacity of distributed photovoltaics was 29.66GW. The newly installed photovoltaic grid-connected capacity reached 53.06GW, a year-on-year increase of 53.6%, and the newly installed photovoltaic capacity of distributed photovoltaics reached 19.44GW, nearly 4.6 times that of 2016. In 2017, China's cumulative and newly installed capacity ranked first in the world. In the first half of 2018, the development of China's photovoltaic industry still maintained a strong momentum. China's cumulative photovoltaic installed grid-connected capacity reached 154.51GW, and the newly added photovoltaic grid-connected installed capacity reached 24.31GW, which was the same as the growth rate of the same period last year. Since then, the development of the photovoltaic industry has almost come to a standstill. As of November 2018, China's cumulative PV installed grid-connected capacity has exceeded 168.47GW, and from January to November 2018, the newly installed PV grid-connected capacity reached 38.22GW, a year-on-year decrease of 21.4%.

On May 31, 2018, the government issued the "Notice on Matters Related to Photovoltaic Power Generation in 2018" (hereinafter referred to as "531 New Deal"), which has been implemented since the date of issuance and is regarded as an "industry emergency". In the new policy, ordinary power stations that require state subsidies are not allowed to be arranged. The distributed photovoltaic scale in 2018 is limited to 10GW, and the subsidies are generally reduced by 0.05 yuan/kWh. This has also led some photovoltaic companies to jointly send letters to relevant government departments.

Although the 531 New Deal is the government's "industry emergency" behavior, it has also been carefully considered. With the expansion of the scale of the photovoltaic industry, the total amount of subsidies has also increased sharply. The total amount of new energy subsidies is simply calculated based on the average on-grid electricity price. In 2017, the subsidies rapidly expanded to nearly 96 billion yuan. The subsidy should be compensated by a renewable energy surcharge levied in the electricity sales price. However, China's renewable surcharge was 0.015 yuan/kWh in 2012 and increased to 0.019 yuan/kWh in 2016. In 2017, the installed capacity of new energy increased significantly, the renewable surcharge did not increase accordingly, and the subsidy gap was still widening. In addition, the rapid expansion of new energy will also lead to two results, one is the rapid increase in the scale of subsidies, and the other is the inefficient installed capacity that does not consider the market, resulting in waste. Therefore, the reduction of photovoltaic subsidies is expected.

The government should strengthen the design of subsidy policy

The 531 New Deal has brought many impacts to the photovoltaic industry. First of all, it is most intuitively reflected in the scale of installed capacity. Since the second half of 2018, the growth of newly installed capacity has been slow, which has slowed down the growth of distributed photovoltaics, which have been developing rapidly and with good momentum recently. Secondly, from the perspective of photovoltaic companies, after the promulgation of the policy, the stock prices of photovoltaic companies plummeted, and the market value of photovoltaic companies decreased significantly, causing investors to panic and worry about the future development of the photovoltaic industry. The net profit of some companies has fallen sharply, and the photovoltaic industry will experience consolidation and reshuffle, and those who are washed out are not necessarily bad companies, but may be good companies with broken capital chains. Third, from the perspective of product prices in the photovoltaic industry, the expectation of a large amount of excess will cause the prices of monocrystalline silicon and other products to drop sharply, and the prices of modules will also drop sharply. In addition, for existing projects that have been legally approved to start construction or have made great progress, whether the subsidy still exists in the future and whether the subsidy can be put in place are the most worrying issues.

Faced with the above situation, the author believes that the government needs to strengthen the design of subsidy policy.

First of all, a downward expectation should be given to photovoltaic subsidies. The lowered expectations can give some PV companies time to buffer and prepare. The government can learn from Germany, issue a clear timetable for subsidy reduction and withdrawal in advance, and give the market a certain expectation. The expected reduction in subsidies can force photovoltaic companies to reduce costs more proactively, and can also prompt them to choose more economical projects, including research on accommodation issues and how to better combine power generation and electricity consumption to ensure project benefits.

Second, the government should change the subsidy design and adopt share subsidies. In other words, the government should set a reasonable limit on the scale of subsidies that can be obtained to prevent PV companies from not taking into account the rapid expansion of the market, resulting in excess capacity and waste of subsidies. By changing the subsidy design, changing the subsidy form to share will reduce the government's subsidy burden to a certain extent. Moreover, setting the subsidy share will help stabilize the demand in the domestic photovoltaic market at a reasonable level, which will be beneficial to the healthy development of the photovoltaic industry.

Third, the government should also change the subsidy point of the industrial chain and use the subsidy to support the technological innovation of photovoltaics. Only the cost reduction brought about by technological progress is permanent. The 21st century is bound to be the century of new energy development. This is a consensus, and the most important breakthrough in new energy innovation will besolar energy. Innovations in solar energy will transform the entire energy system. Photovoltaic R&D and technological progress still require sufficient financial support. The government needs to adopt better subsidy design, so that the subsidy policy has a larger and more flexible operating space, and solve the problem of photovoltaic development in the long run.

Finally, take advantage of the current overcapacity to effectively promote PV grid parity by reducing non-technical costs and adopting other government tools, such as green certificates, priority scheduling, etc.