Domestic ingot furnace performance improves market prospects

Recently, the reporter learned that China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (referred to as China Electronics) 48 is responsible for the electronic information industry development fund "polysilicon ingot furnace development and industrialization" project and "large-diameter closed pipe high temperature diffusion / oxidation equipment" project Passed acceptance smoothly. The industry believes that this marks a major breakthrough in the localization of key equipment in the solar photovoltaic industry in China.

Domestic performance of ingot furnace It is understood that the polysilicon ingot furnace is one of the key equipments in the front end of the solar photovoltaic industry chain. After the silicon material is melted, a large-size polycrystalline silicon ingot is cast using the long crystal solidification technology. The quality of the polycrystalline silicon ingot directly affects many. Photoelectric conversion efficiency of the crystal cell sheet. According to industry insiders, the polysilicon ingot furnace has a high technical content, and has high requirements for the safety, high efficiency, low energy, and finished product performance of the furnace, and the requirements for the automatic control system are also very high.

During the development process of China Electronics Engineering Corporation, a series of technical problems such as polysilicon directional solidification process technology, high-purity furnace technology, crystalline silicon growth system thermal field technology, and precision transmission technology were overcome, and the ingot furnace developed has full autonomy. Property rights, and equipment performance has reached the world's leading level.

The reporter learned that although a few companies in China have been able to produce ingot furnaces, there is a certain gap between the performance indicators and the imported products. The test data show that the average photoelectric conversion efficiency of polycrystalline silicon cells made after the polysilicon ingot produced in the ingot furnace was successfully sliced ​​reached 16.59%, which is 0.35 percentage points higher than that of similar products. Among them, the highly efficient battery cell with a conversion efficiency of 16.2% or more. It has reached 88.17%, while the efficiency of the production of polycrystalline silicon ingots made from imported ingot furnaces is only 63.99%.

At the same time, through the acceptance of the “large-diameter closed-tube high-temperature diffusion/oxidation equipment” project, it has overcome the best process technology of large-caliber closed-tube high-temperature diffusion, high-precision temperature control technology of large-caliber long-term temperature zone, and automatic sealing mechanism design of high-temperature furnace door. Key technologies, and the establishment of production-type large-caliber closed-tube high-temperature diffusion/oxidation systems and process R&D and industrialization production bases with independent intellectual property rights, realizing the localization and industrialization of key process equipment in the photovoltaic industry chain.

The market prospect of polycrystalline silicon ingot furnace is good. It is understood that the main producers of polycrystalline silicon ingot furnaces in the world are GTSolar Corporation of USA and ALD Corporation of Germany. They both mainly attack the Asian and European markets. About 60% of domestic domestic markets are monopolized by GT Solar. There are only a few companies that produce energy in the country. At present, there are only a few companies that can produce polysilicon ingot furnaces in addition to the China Electronics Branch, including Seiko Electric Research Institute Co., Ltd., Beijing Express, Shanghai Hanhong, Beijing Zhonglin, and Yibei Technology.

Industry sources told reporters that in 2010 crystal silicon battery technology to further establish the mainstream position, with current technology breakdown, assuming long-term separation of single crystal Czochralski and polycrystalline ingot, low-cost, high-efficiency polysilicon battery will become a trend in China, Domestic ingot furnace market has unlimited space prospects.

Feng Jinsheng, chairman of Jiangsu Huasheng Tianlong Optoelectronic Equipment Co., Ltd., said that with the increasing demand for polysilicon cells, the demand for polysilicon ingot furnaces also increased at a relatively high rate. According to a conservative estimate until 2012, the global market for polysilicon ingot casting furnaces will reach 3,000; if the optimistic estimate, the demand for polysilicon ingot furnaces is about 6,000.

Everbright Securities analysts believe that this year's domestic polycrystalline ingot furnace installation capacity of about 1,000 units. According to the 15GW newly installed capacity in 2010, the PV market will maintain a compound growth rate of 40% for the next 5 years, and the module output/installation ratio will be maintained at 1.5 times. In 2015, the demand for the ingot furnace market will be 10,000 units, and the total market volume will be 30 billion yuan. Yuan, compound growth rate 60%.

According to industry sources, the downstream wafer factory has brand reliance on polysilicon ingot furnaces, and the indicators such as the stability and yield of the mature brand ingot furnaces must be excellent; the technological gap of domestic equipment is to discourage downstream companies. However, there are different views. A practitioner told the reporter that GTSolar has a unit price of around 4 million yuan per furnace and a domestic unit price of around 2.4 million yuan for ingot furnaces. With the improvement of technology level, domestic manufacturers have a strong demand for equipment customization. Importers who originally occupied the mainstream of the market are unable to provide in-depth customized customer services. This also provides a rare opportunity for domestic manufacturers.

Domestic bottlenecks can not be neglected According to reports, domestic ingot furnace equipment is mostly produced on the basis of digestion and absorption of foreign equipment. Leading companies have made breakthroughs in key technologies such as thermal field design, in terms of safety, energy saving, and heating. The design of the device and the insulation cage also have certain characteristics. The trend of replacing imported equipment has become very clear. Compared with imported equipment, domestically produced equipment has basically the same level of technology and a good price/performance ratio. If some of the key components that need to be imported such as heaters, high-temperature refractory materials, etc. can be replaced by domestic products, domestic equipment can be further improved. Cost-effective.

In the industry's view, the localization of key equipment in the photovoltaic industry can not only change people's situation, save a lot of foreign exchange, but also form a new high-tech product cluster, improve China's photovoltaic industry chain, and promote the overall level of the national photovoltaic industry. .

However, there are still many problems that China needs to solve in the field of photovoltaic equipment. An analyst at CSC pointed out that, first of all, some key equipment still cannot be made domestically. Polysilicon casting furnaces, wire cutting machines, PECVD and other equipment are almost completely dependent on imports. The unit price of these equipments is more than RMB 10 million, and buyers are heavily burdened. Secondly, the equipment and process are out of touch. This has caused some domestic customers to be forced to purchase foreign complete sets of equipment. At the same time, equipment manufacturers cannot timely improve equipment for process requirements.