The prosperity of the industry brings the demand for production expansion, and the intensified competition promotes the renewal of equipment: as the high prosperity of the photovoltaic industry continues, the new demand for equipment is increasing day by day. Many new manufacturers have entered the photovoltaic industry: silicon materials, such as Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co.Ltd(600989) , Qingdao Lihao, etc; Silicon chip links, such as Zhuhai Gaojing, Baotou Meike, etc. As the competition of PV manufacturers intensifies, it becomes a more important means to maintain the original market share and improve their competitiveness in time. Under this influence, the renewal cycle of photovoltaic equipment has been significantly shortened, driving the continuous high growth of the performance of downstream equipment manufacturers.
Technological changes in all links of the photovoltaic industry chain promote iterative renewal of equipment: in recent years, due to technological iterations in all links of the photovoltaic industry, photovoltaic equipment is in the renewal cycle. Among them, large size has a significant impact on photovoltaic equipment manufacturers. For the silicon wafer link, since the single crystal furnace and slicer before 2020 can not be applied to 210 large silicon wafers, technical transformation or renewal is needed. In terms of components, the series welding machine before 2020 cannot be applied to the production of 182 and 210 size components, and the existing production line needs to be updated. For the battery cell link, on the one hand, the large size needs to update and replace the existing equipment. In addition, the selection of cell technology route will become the biggest technological change in the photovoltaic industry in the next few years. TOPCON, hjt and IBC all have manufacturers to choose. Equipment manufacturers will fully benefit from the technological changes in all aspects of photovoltaic, and the high view is expected to continue.
The performance and contractual liabilities of photovoltaic equipment manufacturers continue to improve, and they are optimistic about the future development of cell equipment manufacturers: the performance of photovoltaic equipment companies continues to rise in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. The contract liabilities of silicon wafer equipment and module equipment manufacturers have increased significantly year-on-year. The revenue recognition cycle of photovoltaic equipment manufacturers is generally 9-12 months, and the future performance has strong sustainability. The contract liabilities of battery equipment manufacturers are relatively poor, mainly due to the pressure on the performance of battery manufacturers. In the future, with the improvement of the profits of battery manufacturers and the gradual determination of the technical route of battery, the orders of battery equipment manufacturers are expected to continue to grow high. For the first time, we rated the photovoltaic equipment industry as “leading market-b”.
Risk tip: the installed capacity of photovoltaic is less than expected, the risk market competition is gradually intensified, and China’s policy changes
