NEWS

Since the second half of this year, the price of the photovoltaic industry chain has been in a rapid downward cycle. So far, both p and n modules have fallen below 0.14USD/watt, and industry competition has entered a fierce state. However, although the price of flexible modules has dropped slightly compared to the beginning of the year, it can still maintain a market price of around 0.24 to 0.25USD/watt. Moreover, the number of orders is gradually increasing, and the competitive pressure is relatively small.

In the past two years, distributed photovoltaic have gradually become one of the main players in the downstream market. Both economic benefits and green power benefits are favored by all walks of life. While its installed capacity continues to grow, its application scenarios are also expanding. However, due to the limitations of the building structure in some scenarios, traditional crystalline silicon modules are not suitable for all scenarios, and flexible photovoltaic modules have ushered in their unique market space.

Flexible module companies report an increase in related markets and inquiries. On the one hand, as prices fall, projects with previously unsatisfactory returns are now ready to start. On the other hand, as high-quality roofs for industrial and commercial projects gradually decrease, some non-standard scenarios have gradually become the focus of market developers.

For now, the quotations of flexible module companies have basically remained at around 0.24 to 0.25USD/watt. There are slight differences among different manufacturers, but compared with the previous price of around 0.31USD/watt, the decline is more obvious. The cost of flexible modules is mainly in packaging materials. For example, to meet higher requirements such as CTM, fire protection, corrosion resistance, and anti-aging, the cost is also relatively high. Silicon cost accounts for 40%-50% of the overall module, while the silicon cost of conventional modules is often around 60%. Therefore, the rapid decline in prices in the industry chain is not so obvious on the product side as conventional modules. Another flexible module company employee believes that the smaller decline in flexible modules is partly due to market behavior. Although the cost is relatively high, the competition is not as fierce as that of crystalline silicon module companies, and the price decline is relatively slow.

In terms of specific application scenarios, a salesperson said that the modules purchased by customers are often used in projects where the load is insufficient or the roof cannot penetrate. Some companies said that the cost of roof reinforcement is converted into the cost of a single watt of the photovoltaic system, which is about 0.07USD/watt, and some owners and investors will consider flexible modules. Through the cost comparison between flexible modules and conventional modules, flexible modules will be used first when the economic benefits are met. However, some roofs that cannot be reinforced can only use flexible modules.

It can be seen from the publicly available bidding projects this year that nearly 50% of the project application scenarios use light steel structures in the form of buildings. In fact, lightweight steel structure type roofs are extremely sensitive to load changes. Since this year, various types of light steel structure roofs have collapsed, especially in stadiums. In June this year, the roof of a sports center collapsed severely due to heavy rain and a large number of photovoltaic modules on the roof of the sports center. Therefore, flexible modules have significant application space when they are more sensitive to load or when conventional modules bring load risks.