Longji 8 Billion Invested In The Construction Of 15Gw Single Crystal Battery Project, The Organization Predicts That The High-Efficiency Battery Capacity Will Be Concentrated In The Next Year

Less than a month later, Longji (601012. SH), a leading photovoltaic company, increased the capacity of single crystal cells again.

On the evening of January 18, 2021, Longji announced that the company would invest in the construction of a 15gw single crystal battery project in Jinghe new town, Xixian new area, Shaanxi Province.

In recent years, single crystal battery projects have been intensively constructed

According to the announcement, the newly-built single crystal battery project is planned to be put into operation in 2022, with an investment of about 8 billion yuan (including working capital) by the holding subsidiary of Longji. Within one year after the project is put into operation, Longji will start the construction of an annual output 15gw single crystal module project with relevant parties in Xixian new area.

The official wechat official account of Xixian New Area in Shaanxi Province, "Xixian New Area", disclosed more details of the expected revenue and profit of the new project in a push article on January 19.

According to reports, the project signed by Longji Co., Ltd. will land in Jinghe new town, Xixian new area, with a total investment of 18 billion yuan, and the annual output value will reach 40 billion yuan after the project is completed. Among them, the first phase of the project is to build an annual output of 15gw high-efficiency single crystal battery project. The project is expected to be put into operation in March 2022, with an average annual revenue of 12 billion yuan and a profit of about 1.2 billion yuan. After the first phase of the project was put into operation, the second phase of the project with an annual output of 15gw of high-efficiency photovoltaic modules was launched.

21st century economic reporter noticed that the poster on the wechat showed that the investment amount of this single crystal battery project was 12.2 billion yuan, which was different from the total amount of "8 billion yuan" in Longji's announcement.

In response to the reporter's letter to Longji, the relevant personnel replied that "the (investment amount) in the announcement is mainly equipment, while the government's announcement (investment amount) includes factory buildings, land, etc., and the caliber of the two is not the same."

The new single crystal battery project invested this time is one of the key fields of Longji since 2020. In the 2020 semi annual report, Longji said that in order to guarantee the market supply of single crystal production capacity, the company has accelerated the construction progress of the original planned production capacity.

According to the company's announcement, Longji has signed contracts to build four single crystal battery projects in 2020. To be specific, the company invested about 3.226 billion yuan in March to build the first phase project of Xi'an Aerospace base with an annual output of 7.5GW single crystal battery, which is expected to be put into production in June 2020; in November, it invested about 5.6 billion yuan to build a 10GW single crystal battery project in Qujing (phase I) of Yunnan Province, which is expected to be put into operation in 2022; in December, it invested about 1.397 billion yuan to build a 3gw single crystal battery project in Leye, Ningxia, which is expected to be invested in December 2021 Production.

Further forward, Longji has invested and built a number of high-efficiency single crystal battery projects in Yinchuan, Kujin and Xi'an from 2018 to 2019. According to the disclosed data, Longji has completed the three-year (2019-2021) product capacity planning formulated in 2019 in advance.

According to the minutes of an investor exchange meeting held on January 15, 2021, the company's battery terminal capacity exceeded 30GW by the end of 2020. This figure has exceeded the target (15gw) by the end of 2020 in the three-year product capacity planning, and even achieved the target of 20GW battery capacity by the end of 2021 ahead of schedule.

According to the battery capacity planning of Longji Co., Ltd. sorted out by Hua'an securities at the end of December 2020, the battery capacity of Longji will reach 63.75gw in the future with the capacity of 15gw in Xi'an. "As the size of the product grows, the actual capacity is expected to be larger than the announced capacity." Hua An Securities said.

New projects or application of n-type battery technology

As an intermediate link in the "silicon wafer battery module" photovoltaic industry chain, single-crystal cells are at the critical point of technical iteration: Currently, the widely used perc cells (passive emitter back contact cells) have reached the photoelectric conversion efficiency limit of products, and manufacturers are accelerating the layout of n-type batteries such as heterojunction (hjt).

"In terms of n-type batteries, we think that the perc invested this year may be the last round of large-scale expansion of perc, and the dividend of this part is mainly brought by large-scale production." In an interview with reporters, an analyst in the new energy industry of seller electric power said that the era of large-scale expansion of perc is coming to an end. Looking to the future, the analyst pointed out that the mass production of n-type batteries "depends on when the cost of n-type cells can be comparable with that of perc."

In the announcement of the new project, Longji said that the project investment agreement signed this time conforms to the strategic needs of the company's future battery capacity planning, which is conducive to the company to give full play to the leading edge of high-efficiency battery technology, seize the opportunity of photovoltaic market development, further enhance the company's high-efficiency single-crystal cell capacity scale, and continuously improve the market competitiveness. So, is the "high efficiency battery technology" applied in the battery project invested and built by Longji Co., Ltd. in Xi'an is n-type battery technology?

In this regard, Kaiyuan securities speculated in the research report that the battery route of Xi'an project is n-type high-efficiency battery.

The comparative data from project investment intensity also support this conjecture. The investment intensity of Xi'an project (533 million yuan / GW) is close to the previous Yinchuan project (517 million yuan / GW) and Qujing project (560 million yuan / GW). In the aforementioned minutes of the investor exchange meeting on January 15 this year, Longji shares has indicated that the battery projects of Yinchuan and Qujing are n-type routes.

At the investor exchange meeting, Longji also said that the specific n-type technology adopted by the company is expected to be disclosed as soon as possible in the second quarter of this year, and slower in the third quarter of this year, when there will be more detailed data.

"In terms of heterojunction (battery), we think this year is the key, and large-scale capacity is expected to be in the next year," the aforementioned seller analyst pointed out to reporters that large-scale n-type battery production may appear in the following year, "because after the data verification this year, the capacity expansion after expansion will gather in the next year."

Kaiyuan Securities believes that Longji Co., Ltd. will build new n-type battery capacity and accelerate the expansion of high-efficiency battery production, which will help it occupy the next favorable position in the battery technology reform, and realize the leading of the whole industry chain of "silicon chip cost leading + battery technology leading + module scale leading". Therefore, the company raised the net profit of Longji from 2020 to 2022 to 87.8 (+ 7.6), 113.6 (+ 6.3) and 13.3 (+ 770 million) yuan.

As of January 19, 2021, Longji shares fell 0.65% to 102.50 yuan / share.

?