China Energy Storage Network News: In recent years, with the concept of green development deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and the accelerated transformation of the domestic energy structure, the photovoltaic industry has ushered in a period of development opportunities. Especially in the field of distributed photovoltaics, since the newly installed capacity in 2021 surpassed that of centralized photovoltaics for the first time, the industry is generally optimistic about the market performance this year.

The reporter recently interviewed and found that although the prospect of distributed photovoltaics is promising, in the process of practice, all regions generally face challenges such as inconsistent policy standards, unresolved grid integration problems, and difficulties in later operation and maintenance, while “new technologies” and “new platforms” The “new model” has become the way many companies respond.

Photovoltaic + energy storage

Policies continue to increase, and distributed photovoltaics are expected to improve

Distributed photovoltaics have the characteristics of self-consumption on the user side, surplus electricity connected to the grid, and balance adjustment in the power distribution system. In 2021, the National Energy Administration issued the “Notice of the Comprehensive Division of the National Energy Administration on Submitting the Pilot Plan for the Development of Distributed Photovoltaic Rooftops in Entire Counties (Cities, Districts)”, requiring distributed photovoltaics to “build as much as possible” and “to take as much as possible”. catch”. Not long ago, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Implementation Plan for Carbon Peak in Urban and Rural Construction”, which proposed that by 2025, the photovoltaic coverage rate of new public office buildings and new factory buildings should reach 50%.

The continuous increase of policies has promoted the construction of distributed photovoltaics into the “fast lane”.

In 2021, China will add 54.88GW of new photovoltaic installed capacity, of which distributed photovoltaics will reach 29.27GW, accounting for 53.33%. In the first half of this year, the new installed capacity of photovoltaics was 30.88GW, of which distributed photovoltaics reached 19.65GW, nearly two-thirds. “Industry experts estimate that my country’s newly installed photovoltaic capacity may reach about 100 million kilowatts this year, which means that by the end of this year, photovoltaic installed capacity will exceed the total installed capacity of wind power and become the largest non-fossil energy source, and distributed photovoltaics will also benefit from it.” National Energy Wu Yin, the former deputy director of the bureau, said.

The good market prospects have also received feedback from the capital market. Take Chint Aneng, a leading household photovoltaic company in China, as an example. Not long ago, it received 1 billion yuan in strategic financing. Trina Solar, a veteran photovoltaic leading company, continued to maintain its leading position in the distributed photovoltaic market share in the first half of this year.

It is worth noting that in recent years, affected by internal and external factors, the price of silicon materials has continued to rise, which has brought pressure on downstream enterprises such as photovoltaic modules and affected the progress of distributed photovoltaic construction. However, many industry experts predict that the price of silicon materials may change from the second half of this year. “As new domestic polysilicon projects are put into production, the domestic production capacity is expected to reach 1.2 million tons by the end of this year, and may exceed 2.4 million tons by the end of next year, which is good for distributed photovoltaics,” said Lu Jinbiao, deputy director of the Expert Committee of Jiangsu Photovoltaic Industry Association.

Three challenges deserve attention

Although the prospect of distributed photovoltaic is promising, the reporter learned in the interview that there are still many challenges in the promotion of practice in various places, which are concentrated in three aspects.

First, policies and standards are not uniform across the country. The heads of many enterprises said that since the state proposed to promote the construction of distributed photovoltaics in the whole county (city, district), the implementation of policies in various places has been different, which has brought troubles to enterprises.

At the same time, the lack of standards is also a headache for many companies. Taking BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic) as an example, the construction industry and the photovoltaic industry have their own special standards, and there is currently no clear plan to integrate the two. “For example, due to historical reasons in some areas, the load is not enough. What solution should be used to build photovoltaics on the roof of color steel tiles? How to adapt the life cycle of the power station and the life cycle of the roof needs to be explored.” Sun Guojun, vice president of CITIC Bo, said.

Second, the problem of grid integration is difficult to solve. The National Energy Administration proposed that distributed photovoltaic power generation should be “consumed nearby”, but there are differences in the construction of power grids in various regions, and there are many difficulties in making photovoltaic power generation consumption and grid connection. Li Hu, director of the Energy Research Office of State Grid Jiangsu Economic Research Institute, said that different levels of power grids face different problems. For example, the distribution network may face line constraints and may also face section constraints.

Not only is the consumption problem at the level of the large power grid, but the power infrastructure in vast rural areas also needs to be further upgraded.

Many industry insiders said that in order to solve the consumption problem, in addition to continuing to strengthen scientific and technological innovation, it is necessary to cooperate with market players such as photovoltaic companies and power grid companies.

Third, there are still many difficulties in the later operation and maintenance. For industry and commerce, the “spontaneous self-use” feature of distributed photovoltaics brings obvious economic benefits to enterprises in energy conservation and emission reduction. However, for a large number of household photovoltaic users, how to find profit points becomes the key to healthy development in the later stage.

Experts said that under the global trend of “carbon reduction”, it is imperative to explore the recycling of waste photovoltaic modules.

Technological innovation is still the key to solving the problem

During the interview, the reporter found that in response to the above challenges, enterprises have carried out advanced exploration around technological innovation.

“New technology” has become the focus of enterprises. In recent years, the rapid development of new batteries including heterojunction and perovskite has provided an optional path for cost reduction and efficiency increase in distributed photovoltaic construction. For example, the flexible perovskite solar cell modules developed by Dazheng Micro-Nano Technology are expected to be installed on car roofs, iron towers and other fields, and are currently expanding their production capacity from the current 10MW to 100MW. The lightweight and flexible monocrystalline silicon modules developed by Rituo Photovoltaics have recently received a purchase order of 6.6321 million yuan from Taiji Industry.

Zhu Yixin, general manager of SPIC Jiangsu Hehui Integrated Smart Energy, said that every time the manufacturing scale of photovoltaic panels doubles, the fixed cost of products will drop by 25%. more obvious.

“New platform” has become the common choice of many enterprises. “Household photovoltaics are like ‘ants moving house’. Individual users are relatively scattered, and the entire project has a lot of processes, which require systematic construction.” said Wang Zhihua, manager of the Public and Government Affairs Department of Astronergy. The company explores the “photovoltaic planet”, and ensures the quality of distributed power station construction and operation and maintenance services through training agents, operation and maintenance providers, business development personnel and engineering construction personnel.

The information platform built by Trina Solar has opened up the data flow between enterprises and suppliers, within enterprises, and between enterprises and users, and realized transparent management of front-end, operation, procurement, production, logistics, service and other links. “This platform will not only serve Trina Solar’s distributed power plants, but also serve friends and businessmen,” said Gao Jifan, chairman of Trina Solar.

The “new model” contains the possibility of solving the problem. “Photovoltaic + energy storage” has become an important mode of distributed photovoltaic construction, but many interviewees said that the construction of energy storage power stations for each project has problems such as scattered resources and low utilization rate, and “shared energy storage” may become Breakthrough ideas. “Shared energy storage is currently mainly used for peak-shaving and frequency regulation on the side of large-scale power stations or power grids. There have been successful cases in Northwest China. With the acceleration of distributed project construction, in the next three to five years, shared energy storage will be used in distributed power stations or There will be more applications.” Said Han Guang, Photovoltaic Channel Product Director of Hopewind Electric.