February 28, 2019 Source: China Energy News

Recently, the Price Department of the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration organized intensive policy discussions on how to adjust the PV management measures in 2019. The discussion also released new information: 2019 photovoltaic power generation, from indicators, scale, electricity prices to subsidies, will undergo profound changes. How do you interpret and predict these changes as an insider?

Judging from the draft for comment, the National Energy Administration hopes that the domestic PV market will be stable in 2019. The wording of the government documents is rigorous and steady, and it can be understood that the domestic PV installation market in 2019 is not lower than the 2018 level. The installed capacity of photovoltaics in 2018 was 43 GW. Judging from the current situation, the newly added PV installed capacity in 2019 includes completely new indicators in 2019, uncompleted PV front-runner projects and poverty alleviation projects, and completed but no-index projects left over from the previous years. This accounting method is different from many companies' estimates of the market. Manufacturers are more concerned about shipments. Projects that have been built but have no indicators are not considered, but these projects will also be included in the new scale in 2019. Therefore, the difference in statistical caliber also caused differences in the market forecast for 2019.

The core of the rules of the New Deal bid is that the Energy Bureau must control the total amount of subsidies through bidding, in order to achieve quantitative subsidies to support the project as much as possible. First, the provinces and cities will organize the competition declared by the project, and then according to the declared national subsidy, the on-grid price will be sorted from the highest to the lower of the benchmark price. For example, the benchmark price of a project is 0.4 yuan, and the declared electricity price is 0.3 yuan, which is a decrease of 0.1 yuan. However, if the declared electricity price is 0.29 yuan, then it will drop by 0.11 yuan, and the order of the project will be more advanced. some. Therefore, it is sorted according to the magnitude of the price cut, not exactly according to the declared price of electricity. According to this sorting method, in order to enter the financial subsidy list, the provinces will try their best to bid on the benchmark price.

In addition, it is still necessary to combine other relevant policies. The first one is the document of the electricity price policy, which clarifies that the electricity price should be lowered by one cent per quarter. In addition, we have to wait for the documents to be clearly allocated. There have been rumors that the subsidy for the project in 2019 will no longer be in arrears. The finance will add the additional surcharges for renewable resources every year to solve the new projects in the year. The old projects will be placed there for the time being, which is for the cash flow of enterprises. Accounting for revenue is very important. Whether the rumors come true or not, we still have to wait for the policy to be clear.

Deng Yongkang, Principal Analyst of Anxin Electric

From the fourth quarter of 2018 to the present, although domestic electricity price policies and indicators have not been fixed, the demand in overseas markets is very strong. The top ten component companies in the domestic production capacity scale have already signed orders in the first half of 2019, and even some enterprises have started to sign orders in the third and fourth quarters, and most of the orders are from overseas markets, which further proves that The strong overseas demand has driven the fact that the off-season is not weak. After the photovoltaic “531” policy, the price of the industrial chain fell by more than 30%, and the demand in overseas markets was quickly released.

In the medium and long term, many overseas markets have entered a parity cycle. As the cost of photovoltaic power generation is further reduced, more and more Giva-level markets will emerge in overseas. Many overseas regions are demand-driven markets, because the cost of power generation is low, and the willingness to install is naturally released.

Due to strong demand, prices have also risen slightly. Affected by the Spring Festival factor, domestic PV manufacturing enterprises have reduced production or even stopped production, and driven by strong overseas demand, the PV industry chain prices have further stabilized and rebounded. With the continued strong overseas demand and the arrival of the third quarter of the domestic peak season, the price of the relevant links in the industry chain is expected to remain firm, and the performance of manufacturing companies is expected to continue to exceed expectations.

Industry expert Wang Shujuan

Judging from the information released so far, the PV price policy will be fine-tuned three times.

First, it is changed from the original adjustment 3 times to the adjustment 2 times. Considering that the PV project allocation should be completed in the second quarter of 2019, the adjustment of the PV benchmark price will be changed from the original three (two in each of the second, third and fourth quarters) to two (three in each of the third and fourth quarters). Therefore, the benchmark electricity price in different resource areas becomes: first second quarter: 0.4 yuan / kWh, 0.45 yuan / kWh, 0.55 yuan / kWh; third quarter: 0.39 yuan / kWh, 0.44 yuan / kWh , 0.54 yuan / kWh; fourth quarter: 0.38 yuan / kWh, 0.43 yuan / kWh, 0.53 yuan / kWh.

Secondly, the time of obtaining the electricity price is changed according to the node. The original policy was to determine the price of electricity at the time of obtaining the indicator. As long as it was completed within four quarters, the electricity price at that time could be implemented. This would cause many projects to be deliberately dragged into the grid by 2020 to seek lower costs. According to the plan discussed by the National Energy Administration, in order to guide as many projects as possible in the grid in 2019, the new policy will take the grid connection time as the node, and the company promises to connect to the grid in which quarter, according to which quarter of the electricity price as the benchmark for bidding.

Finally, the grid connection is more user-friendly. Considering that enterprises can obtain indicators at the end of the second quarter, they must be connected to the grid by the end of 2019. The actual project implementation time is only half a year (including the winter frozen period). Therefore, despite the full promotion of the company, some large-scale projects are inevitable. Will be extended to 2020. With this in mind, the price of electricity will be reduced by one cent in one quarter and by 5% in two quarters.

At the same time, the industry is also controversial on three key issues:

First, how much is the household PV indicator?

From the perspective of subsidy occupation, it should not be too much. The household electricity subsidy is 0.18 yuan / kWh, and does not bid, and remains unchanged throughout the year. The amount of subsidies is relatively high and the required subsidy funds are relatively large.

It has been suggested that the household PV index is 3 GW. Considering 1100 hours, the amount of subsidy required for 3 GW is: 3 × 0.18 yuan × 1100 = 594 million yuan. As such, the amount of subsidies left for the remaining projects is only 2.4 billion yuan.

From the perspective of ensuring a stable market development, it should not be too small. In 2017, there were about 350,000 new household photovoltaics in the country and about 280,000 sets in 2018. Considering 10 kW/set, 3 GW is about 300,000 sets.

Second, will it be a single column of industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaics?

Some people think that industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaics generally have a size of less than 6 megawatts, or even less than 1 megawatt; ground-based power stations are smashing 50-100 megawatts or even larger. How to compete with a small project of 1 MW and a large project of 100 MW?

In addition, the industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaic power subsidy is 0.1 yuan / kWh, the largest decline is 0.1 yuan / kWh; and in many areas the ground power station's power subsidy is above 0.15 yuan / kWh, the theoretical decline can reach 0.15 yuan / More than kWh. In the case of sorting by the magnitude of the decline, there is no competitive advantage in industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaics.

Based on the above reasons, there is a view that industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaics should be allowed to compete separately.

However, if it is a single column, new problems arise. How large is the distribution of industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaics? Industrial and commercial distributed PV investors must believe that the bigger the better; the ground power station investors believe that they should be given less. How to divide reasonably is debatable.

Third, how to treat the stock-free project without indicators?

If the inventory project is allowed to occupy the 2019 indicator, it will definitely affect the new scale in 2019. Although the investment project is very expensive, if it is willing to bid at the subsidy strength of 0.01 yuan/kWh, it will not let it occupy the index. Instead, let the new project occupancy index with the subsidy strength of 0.07 yuan/kWh be unreasonable. Therefore, it seems that the reason for the fair participation of stock projects in competition seems to be sufficient.