The unit investment in cell equipment of the XBC route is significantly high, and the increase in coating, laser, thermal diffusion and other equipment is large.
The unit investment in BC cell equipment is around 300 million to 400 million yuan/GW, which is significantly higher than the TOPCon technology path: Based on the current investment in fixed assets of the BC cell production line announced by Aiko Co., Ltd. and LONGi Green Energy, the current investment in BC cell equipment is relatively high. Among them, the Aiko ABC route involves two kinds of doping, and the process is relatively cumbersome, with a unit investment of around 400 million yuan/GW, while the LONGi HPBC route has a relatively simple process with an equipment investment of about 300 million yuan/GW, and the unit equipment investment of both is significantly higher than the level of less than 200 million yuan/GW of TOPCon. We believe that there are three main reasons for the high investment per unit of equipment in the BC technology route: (1) there are many process links in the BC route, and multiple new coating masks, laser patterning, and diffusion doping links have been added. (2) The BC route has higher requirements for the accuracy of some process equipment, for example, the improvement of electrode positioning accuracy may increase the cost of metallization equipment to a certain extent. (3) In the early stage of commercial mass production, the localization and large-scale cost reduction of BC-related equipment are still insufficient.
Coating, laser, thermal diffusion and other equipment unit value increased greatly: according to the announcement of Aiko shares, the total investment of its Yiwu Phase VI 15GW high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cell project equipment is 5.729 billion yuan, and the corresponding unit equipment investment is about 382 million yuan/GW, of which the unit investment of vapor deposition coating equipment, lithography treatment equipment, thermal diffusion and impurity absorption equipment reached 96 million yuan/GW, 57 million yuan/GW and 30 million yuan/GW respectively. According to the global photovoltaic data, in the initial equipment investment of TOPCon, the unit investment of vapor deposition coating equipment, thermal diffusion and impurity absorption equipment is about 72 million yuan/GW and 20 million yuan/GW respectively, and the laser process is basically only used for the boron expansion SE link of TOPCon. It can be seen that compared with TOPCon technology, the BC technology route represented by ABC has increased the unit value of coating, laser, thermal diffusion and other equipment due to the increase in process complexity, among which laser equipment has benefited from the repeated application of the patterning process, and the value has increased greatly.
Leading enterprises such as LONGi and Aiko continue to expand their production layout.
Many companies already have xBC technology reserves, and LONGi Green Energy and Aiko continue to promote production capacity improvement: At present, the commercial mass production of xBC technology route is mainly promoted by LONGi Green Energy and Aiko Co., Ltd., two leading manufacturers, according to their disclosed expansion plans, it is expected that by 2025, Aiko Co., Ltd. and LONGi Green Energy will have 25GW and 74GW of xBC cell production capacity respectively. In addition to the above-mentioned xBC route leaders, TCL Zhonghuan, JinkoSolar, Junda Co., Ltd., JA Solar, Trina Solar and other photovoltaic companies also have xBC technology reserves.
At present, manufacturers have disclosed that the xBC cell capacity expansion plan will reach 131GW, corresponding to about 6.9 billion yuan and 8.3 billion yuan of laser and thin film deposition equipment, respectively: according to the current announcement of Aiko Co., Ltd. and LONGi Green Energy, the two leading companies have planned to put into operation a total of 99GW of xBC production capacity by 2025, and there are 32GW of production capacity that has been planned but has not yet determined the specific production time. We assume that the new production capacity of xBC in 2024-2025 will be about 60GW and 70GW respectively, and the value of laser and thin film deposition equipment corresponding to the N-type route will be calculated according to the unit equipment investment announced by Aiko, and at the same time, considering that the P-type technical route has fewer deposition and coating process links, the value of the thin film deposition equipment is also estimated to be reduced, and we estimate that in 2024-2025, the market space of xBC laser equipment is expected to reach 3.4 billion yuan and 3.5 billion yuan respectively. The market space of thin film deposition equipment is expected to reach 4 billion yuan and 4.3 billion yuan respectively.
Source: Zhongyin Securities