Focus this week: Sany Heavy Industry Co.Ltd(600031) , Yantai Jereh Oilfield Services Group Co.Ltd(002353) , Zhejiang Dingli Machinery Co.Ltd(603338) , Jiangsu Shentong Valve Co.Ltd(002438)
Core view of this week: since the beginning of the year, the pressure for steady growth has increased, and the intensity of infrastructure investment is expected to increase. We believe that relatively weak public utilities construction is expected to become a hot spot for investment, including “double carbon” related nuclear energy, hydrogen energy, water network and smart water construction, oil and gas pipeline network construction, which will bring equipment investment demand.
Metallization affects battery cost and conversion efficiency, and ultimately relates to the choice of battery path. Battery metallization is one of the important links in the manufacturing process of photovoltaic cells. Through conductive paste printing and sintering, metallized electrodes are prepared on the front and back of silicon wafers to form close and efficient ohmic contact between electrodes and cells, and lead photogenerated carriers out of the cell. Metallization is related to the production cost and conversion efficiency of battery chips, and ultimately affects the choice of battery path in the future. Therefore, the optimization of metallization process has not only become a key field for battery manufacturers to achieve cost reduction plan, but also become the focus of the industry.
The traditional metallization is mainly contact type, and the equipment and slurry are optimized to realize resonance. In terms of cost reduction, in addition to using domestic silver slurry and new slurry (silver clad copper), metallization adopts new technology and process to reduce cost and improve conversion efficiency. According to different printing methods, metallization can be roughly divided into contact and non-contact. 1) Contact metallization is represented by screen printing, and the technical improvement mainly focuses on increasing the number of grid lines. In addition, it also includes smbb technology jointly developed by Maiwei Huasheng, meyerberg no main grid technology and full opening steel sector printing technology newly launched by Maiwei; 2) Non contact metallization mainly refers to battery technology other than screen printing technology, including electroplating, Deere’s laser transfer technology, etc. This paper will focus on the cost reduction and technical progress of contact metallization.
Accelerate the technical iteration and focus on tracking the mass production verification. 1) Conventional screen printing: according to CPIA, 99.9% of batteries will use screen printing technology in 2020. At present, the market is dominated by 9bb, accounting for 66.2% (Maiwei has become the leader of screen printing equipment with 70% market share); 2) Optimize the number of main grids: according to the research, with the increase of the number of main grids, the silver slurry consumption of the battery is significantly reduced. Therefore, Mai jointly developed smbb for Huasheng; 3) Optimization process: Junshi has newly launched a new magnetron sputtering coating superposition optimized grid technology. At present, small batch trial production of batteries has been completed, and there may be some commissioning operation on the batch production line; 4) Optimize screen material and structure: full opening steel sector printing technology is a new technology, which realizes a new breakthrough on the basis of conventional screen printing technology.
After the application of various technologies, the silver slurry consumption is reduced to varying degrees: take hjt battery as an example: 1) multiple main grids: with the increase of the number of main grids, the silver slurry consumption decreases gradually; 2) Smbb: single piece silver paste decreased from 230mg to 129mg, with a decrease of 43.5%; 3) Junshi’s magnetron sputtering coating optimization technology: the unit consumption of silver slurry of G1 hjt battery decreased significantly from 150mg to 80mg, a decrease of about 47%; 4) Full opening screen technology: under the condition of manufacturing batteries with the same efficiency, about 20% silver paste can be saved. In addition, according to our calculation, after the technical optimization, the gap between hjt and perc / TOPCON is further narrowed.
The improvement of main grid technology improves the accuracy requirements of series welding machine, which also affects the selection of battery technology path in the future. For metallization itself, the optimization of contact metallization process is not difficult for the improvement of printing equipment. The difficulty of equipment optimization and transformation is large, which is concentrated in the series welding machine, which is reflected in the improvement of the accuracy requirements of the welding strip. In addition, the tracking of metallization progress is to understand the cost reduction of heterojunction batteries: the significant reduction of silver slurry cost through metallization transformation will substantially promote the development of hjt battery technology and benefit the technology layout enterprises.
Investment suggestion: it is suggested to pay attention to the advanced equipment manufacturers Suzhou Maxwell Technologies Co.Ltd(300751) , Wuhan Dr Laser Technology Corp.Ltd(300776) , Shenzhen S.C New Energy Technology Corporation(300724) , Yingkou Jinchen Machinery Co.Ltd(603396) in the layout of new Metallization Technology. At present, all equipment manufacturers promote the verification of mass production line with new metal technology in the downstream production line. Once a breakthrough is made, they will take the lead in benefiting from the change of technology and seize a broader market space.
Risk warning: the downstream demand of photovoltaic is less than expected; Changes in battery technology path; The verification effect of the new technology in the mass production line is not as good as expected.
