Since the beginning of this week, two major summits in the new energy industry have attracted market attention. One is the 16th (2023) International Solar Photovoltaics and Smart Energy (Shanghai) Conference and Exhibition of SNEC, and the other is the 13th China International Energy Storage Conference. From the feedback of many attendees, both conferences were quite popular.


According to the author's observation, the most eye-catching event of these two events is the emergence of new technologies by major new energy enterprises.


Roughly speaking, Longji Green Energy has announced that it has achieved a conversion efficiency of 31.8% for crystalline silicon perovskite stacked batteries on commercial grade velvet CZ silicon wafers; Trina Solar has released a new generation of photovoltaic power station systems and N-type i-TOPCon technology; Ningde Times has announced the world's first "zero auxiliary source" optical storage integration solution; BYD has officially launched a cube energy storage system product with integrated blade batteries.


Whether it is photovoltaic or energy storage, leading enterprises have launched technological products that can be called "Rocket", and the smell of "technical war" is strong. It is not difficult to find that these enterprises are constantly breaking technological boundaries and improving efficiency, and new technologies are becoming the core of competition for new energy enterprises. From the perspective of technological innovation, this competition is worth encouraging. In recent years, under the "dual carbon" goal, China's new energy industry has developed rapidly. After nearly 20 years of development, the photovoltaic industry has the most complete industry chain in the world, and the photovoltaic technology and product quality have also been greatly improved, maintaining a leading position in various aspects.


Especially since the beginning of this year, the export of "New Three Kinds" products represented by electric passenger cars, lithium batteries, and solar cells has grown rapidly. Data shows that in the first four months of this year, China's "new three sample" products exported a total of 353.48 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 72%. Innovation and low-carbon are the main characteristics of the "new three types", and this is also the result of continuous technological iteration and upgrading of the industrial structure.


While affirming the development achievements of the photovoltaic industry, many new energy leaders mentioned at the aforementioned two conferences that the bottleneck faced by the photovoltaic industry is still significant. In the future, the photovoltaic industry will no longer be a separate industry, but will move forward in parallel with multiple industries such as energy storage and hydrogen energy. This also means that there is still a need to break through the technology of integrated development of multiple industries.


Therefore, in my opinion, the new energy industry represented by photovoltaic still faces many challenges. Only by continuously promoting the advancement of industry chain technology can we achieve rapid product upgrading, ensure the global leading competitiveness of photovoltaic and other industries, and further stimulate new potential for industry development, such as strengthening the links with energy storage and hydrogen energy, and ultimately achieve the development trend of "wind and solar hydrogen storage" in parallel.


However, the "technology war" launched by new energy enterprises also reminds many cross-border enterprises from another perspective: although the prospects of new energy markets such as photovoltaic and energy storage are vast and the space is huge, if they cannot keep up with the pace of these leading enterprises in terms of technology, it may become increasingly difficult to get a piece of the pie.