Once Again, Photovoltaic Giant: Can Suntech And Yingli Be Reborn?

Miao Liansheng has not appeared in the public's sight for a long time, but Yingli energy, founded by him, has started activities frequently recently.

One of the most concerned news is that the recent start of the photovoltaic industry base project invested by it. On October 15, Yingli group's new photovoltaic industrial base project with a total investment of 1.7 billion yuan was started in Tangxian Economic Development Zone, Hebei Province. In the 21st century, the reporter will report on the green building materials industry related to the green building materials park.

If you want to make a biography of important figures in the development history of China's photovoltaic industry, there will be a series of names joining Miao Liansheng: Shi Zhengrong, Zhu Gongshan, Li Hejun, Gao Jifan, Qu Xiaohua, Jin Baofang, Li Zhenguo, Liu Hanyuan, Cao Renxian, and Peng Xiaofeng, founder of Seville LDK, who is far away from the United States. With their courage and determination, they have created one photovoltaic entrepreneurship myth after another. But some of them are sad - Shi Zhengrong's Suntech electric power, Miao Liansheng's Yingli energy, Peng Xiaofeng's Seville LDK have all flourished and declined and went bankrupt and restructured.

Fortunately, these former photovoltaic giants have been reborn. In today's new round of photovoltaic industry competition, there are many old trees emerging. What makes people sad is that in the future development history, the names of the founders who once went deep into the corporate gene may gradually be diluted.

Giant rebirth

Yingli energy's bankruptcy reorganization is entering a critical stage.

On September 23 this year, Baoding Tianwei Yingli new energy Co., Ltd. announced that "10 Yingli MtN1" and "11 Willie MtN1" bonds had already constituted a default. However, on September 9, the first creditors' meeting on the merger and reorganization of six companies including Yingli energy (China) Co., Ltd. was held, and the voting on the draft merger and reorganization was postponed to October 9.

21st century economic reporter learned from an informed person that Yingli energy's merger and reorganization bill has been passed by creditors on October 9, and is expected to enter the implementation stage through judicial judgment at the end of October.

"In the future, Yingli will transform to technology, green and service." A staff member of Yingli energy told the 21st century economic report that in recent years, the company's technological updates, "photovoltaic plus" applications and the development of green building materials products are all around this keynote.

In the eyes of employees, Yingli energy seems to be moving towards a green and stable development road, laying a new posture in the future. This is in sharp contrast to the image of "price butcher" in the industry ten years ago.

There is always a period of controversy in the success history of every giant enterprise. The controversy of Yingli energy lies in that it has been labeled as market grabbing regardless of cost.

In 1998, Miao Liansheng, who founded Baoding Yingli new energy Co., Ltd., began his Yingli career. At that time, Shi Zhengrong, known as the "godfather of photovoltaic", had not returned home to start a business, while Miao Liansheng chose polysilicon solar cells as the starting point.

In the exhibition hall of Yingli energy headquarters, a polycrystalline silicon ingot weighing 240 kg has been on display for a long time. Although the weight of polycrystalline silicon ingot has far exceeded this weight, more than ten years ago, such polycrystalline silicon ingot became an important support for Yingli energy to fill the gap of domestic polycrystalline silicon solar cell production. In 1999, Yingli energy undertook the first demonstration project of annual production of 3MW polysilicon solar cell and application system in China. Subsequently, Miao Liansheng created a vertical integration mode for Yingli energy, and built a complete industrial chain model from ingot, silicon wafer, battery, module to photovoltaic application system.

Talking about the impression of Yingli energy more than ten years ago, a senior photovoltaic practitioner used the word "troublemaker" to the 21st century economic reporter.

"The well-known" 69.6 "incident is the beginning of the Yingli energy dispute." The person recalled that the event occurred in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, 10 MW photovoltaic grid connected power generation demonstration project bidding activities. As the largest photovoltaic power station in China at that time, the bidding of 10 MW photovoltaic grid connected power generation demonstration project in Dunhuang attracted attention. Domestic mainstream photovoltaic cell, module enterprises and power generation groups formed a number of consortia to participate in the bidding. Under the industry's view that the photovoltaic power price would be 2-3 yuan / kWh at that time, Yingli energy's consortium quoted a low price of 0.69 yuan / kWh, which was astonishing.

At the time of the "69th" incident, Yingli energy had been listed in the United States for a year. At this time, Yingli energy under the leadership of Miao Liansheng embarked on the road of radical expansion, and the low price strategy became an important means to seize the market.

Yingli energy has not failed to respond to the "price butcher" controversy. It believes that the whole industrial chain layout and cost control can support low prices. However, it is precisely because of Yingli's low price strategy that caused the "price war" in the industry later. Superimposed on the European and American "double anti" investigations in 2012, the entire Chinese photovoltaic industry ushered in a major reshuffle. The debt crisis of Yingli energy was ignited in 2015.

In this reshuffle, Suntech Power also fell.

In the course of the development of China's photovoltaic industry, Shi Zhengrong's reputation is better than that of the rising of the seedlings. In 2000, he returned home to start his own business with a thick business plan, which was supported by Wuxi Municipal government, and took Suntech Power into root here.

Today's Suntech Power after bankruptcy restructuring, has long been no shadow of Shi Zhengrong. But the brand influence left in the early days is still there.

On October 10, this year, the foundation laying ceremony of "zigbo Jingyou photovoltaic technology 3gw (phase I) solar module project" (hereinafter referred to as Zibo project) jointly invested by Suntech new energy investment holding company of Suntech Power and Shanghai Daode was held in Shandong Province. "The partner is also interested in our brand and quality, so that the project can finally be completed." An executive of Suntech Power said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter.

Shi Zhengrong spent five years to build Suntech into a world-class photovoltaic enterprise and landed in the US stock market. But it took him eight years to burst the myth. In March 2013, Suntech Power declared bankruptcy and was finally accepted by Shunfeng optoelectronics as a strategic investor.

Shunfeng optoelectronics was originally affiliated to Shunfeng clean energy, and the latter was a Hong Kong listed company. However, due to poor management and debt accumulation in recent years, Shunfeng optoelectronics and Suntech Power have been stripped out of the listed company system.

Today's Suntech Power mainly relies on component business, which was the core competitiveness of Suntech more than a decade ago.

"At present, the overall operation of Suntech Power has improved, and will continue to increase the research and development of components." At present, the company has invested about 6.5gw of component capacity, and another 5GW of component capacity is about to be implemented.

The battle for survival

In this year's SNEC 14th (2020) international solar photovoltaic and smart energy conference and exhibition, Yingli energy's booth, Longji Co., Ltd. and GCL group are in the same hall and competing on the same stage.

In fact, it is very difficult for Yingli energy to reproduce its former glory in a short time. An analyst of the photovoltaic industry told the 21st century economic report that the domestic photovoltaic industry has entered the stage of oligopoly competition in some subdivision fields. Whether Yingli or Suntech, what needs to be considered at this stage is to keep a firm foothold in the competition and "survive first, then live".

The 21st century business reporter learned that Yingli energy is now shifting its focus to the field of batteries and components. A person close to Yingli energy told the 21st century economic report that Yingli energy is adjusting its industrial structure, splitting and compressing the original whole industry chain model.

At this year's SNEC exhibition, Yingli energy will focus on efficient components. One of the two-sided modules adopts high-efficiency TOPCON battery technology; the other single-crystal module product introduces the technology of M12 (210mm) large-size silicon chip and the technology of three-piece multi main gate. In an interview with the media, Yingli energy related personnel said that in the future restructuring plan, the company mainly focuses on the production and sales of medium and high-end products. It is expected that the production capacity will gradually increase to about 10GW from 2024 to 2025.

Focusing on the battery and component business can reduce the financial pressure for Yingli energy. In fact, this is also the core competitiveness of the old group of photovoltaic giant enterprises. As a result, Suntech electric power also chose to continue deep ploughing in the field of components.

In the recently started Zibo project, the main component production line of Shangde power can realize the mass production of 210mm large-size high-power components, and it is expected to be put into production in March next year. "Suntech Power's new production line mainly plans to produce 182mm and 210mm size components. Of course, the largest shipment volume is still 166mm size components." Suntech Power executives told 21st century economic reporter.

However, in this year's PV industry chain prices rise, the days of module enterprises are not easy.

In July this year, affected by the production accident and natural disasters in the head polysilicon plant, the domestic polysilicon price has been rising all the way. Subsequently, the price rising pressure of this upstream material continued to conduct downward, and the prices of silicon wafers, batteries and components increased one after another. At the same time, photovoltaic glass, film and other auxiliary materials also join the ranks of price increases.

In fact, the price rise caused by tight supply is quite a headache for component manufacturers. Although component manufacturers can continue to transfer the pressure of rising costs by raising prices, the shortage of production materials leads to the failure of many component enterprises to release their production capacity. In an interview with the 21st century economic report reporter, the above-mentioned Suntech Power executives were quite helpless, "many materials, such as battery chips and photovoltaic glass, have been locked in the head of large factories."

This reflects the embarrassing situation of these former photovoltaic giants.

This year, the photovoltaic fever set off by Longji and Tongwei has swept the A-share market. The market value of the two giants has reached new highs and become 100 billion enterprises. Compared with the "old" giants such as Suntech Power and Yingli energy, the advantages of "new" giants such as Longji and Tongwei in the capital market, financing capacity and performance management are finally transformed into capital strength, which further helps them continue to expand in the photovoltaic industry. In the shortage of material supply in the second half of this year, Longji and other giants realized supply guarantee with abundant capital strength and industrial layout.

21st century economic reporter noted that components and silicon wafers together contributed nearly 90% of Longji's business income. However, whether the component and silicon business as a "cash cow" can continue to support the growth of market value depends on whether the capacity scale can continue to expand.

In order to guarantee the future supply of PV materials, Longxin has signed 5.7 billion yuan worth of PV Materials and Longxin Glass Co., Ltd. It is worth mentioning that at the end of September this year, Longji and Tongwei reached the cooperation intention of establishing a long-term and stable supply-demand relationship of polysilicon materials. The alliance of the two giants, to a certain extent, solves the problem of raw material supply for Longji's future expansion.

However, when resources are gathered in the hands of leading enterprises, other production enterprises may face production crisis. Fortunately, the shortage of photovoltaic materials supply will be eased in the short term.

They may not be able to reinvent their shares in longway and Rongji. However, in the layout of new products and technologies, Yingli energy and Suntech Power have followed closely.

This seems to be a decisive battle in the future "gamble", the winner Phoenix Nirvana, the loser left the game.