The Research On Processing Overcapacity Of The Photovoltaic Industry

In recent years, with the rapid development of the world economy, energy demand and consumption have increased sharply. In this case, the problems of energy shortage and environment pollution have become increasingly prominent. In order to achieve sustainable economic development, many countries start to promote low-carbon economy and gradually exploit renewable energy instead of traditional energy. In the context of economic transformation, PV industry is one of the strategic emerging industries China will focus on to transform extensive economic growth pattern with high energy consuming and inefficiency. Under the guidance of national policy, there appeared a nationwide PV industry investment boom, which led to rapid PV production expansion and the risk of overcapacity. In September of2009, the State Council pointed out that the emerging industries such as polysilicon should be paid more attention due to the trend of repeated investment. What’s more, PV industry has went to deeper recession since the American and European companies initiated the "anti-dumping, anti-subsidy" investigation against Chinese PV products. Because PV industry is a high-tech industry and technical progress is the key factor of its development as well as the crux of Chinese PV industry, it is very important to analyze the overcapacity problem of the PV industry based on the perspective of technical innovation.In this paper, by using the theories of western economics, industrial economics and economics of innovation, it will analyze the development status of the whole PV industry chain deeply. Based on the analysis, It will focus on the fact that the higher value-added industrial chain links such as silicon purification and PV integration system suffer from outdated technology, while the lower value-added industrial chain links such as solar cell production and assembling exist the problem of excessive expansion. It is can also be proved by the indexes including capacity utilization, market price trend and financial conditions of major PV enterprises. Combining the above analysis, it will come to the conclusion that the low end rather than the high end capacity expand excessively, which has been mainly caused by the shortage of core technology. Firstly, most of the domestic PV technologies were brought in from the developed countries, which resulted in high cost and disadvantage in price competitiveness. In addition, due to duplicated technology introduction, there exists homogeneity phenomenon where similar products have been invested repeatedly. Secondly, domestic companies were lost in vicious circle meaning "technology import-technology backwardness-import again-backward again" rather than the track of "technology import-digestion and absorption-independent innovation", that eventually led to low level repeated construction and overcapacity. Thirdly, domestic PV productions at the low technical level have been sold at a lower price, which encountered "anti-dumping, anti-subsidy" survey from Europeans and Americans and intensified the overcapacity risk. Besides from the structural characteristics, the overcapacity appears periodically. That is to say, as the domestic photovoltaic market launches and foreign economy recoveries, the market demand for photovoltaic products will remain high growth and excessive capacity will also be digested at a certain degree. Based on the above illustrations, we can find out that how to improve the technology innovation ability is the key solution to solve the overcapacity problem of PV industry in China. This paper designs a technical innovation path comprises selection of object of innovation, research and development mode, R&D organization, R&D financial support and policy environmental constructions.The innovation of this paper is analyzing the overcapacity problem of China’s PV industry from the view of technology innovation and providing an integrated approach to solve the problem. Because PV industry is a high-tech industry and technical progress is the key factor of its development as well as the crux of China, it is very meaningful to analyze the overcapacity problem from this view. The lack of this paper is mainly divided into two sections. On one hand, there are several factors that contribute to the formation of overcapacity. Since the paper has analyzed just from the view of technical innovation, the conclusion might not have been proved by other factors. On the other hand, it is hard to find the specific R&D data of PV industry in China. So there is no mathematical analysis to support the relevant conclusions of the article. To some extent, it affects the integrity and convincing of the article.This paper is divided into six parts. The first part is the introduction, stating the research background, current research status, the frame of the article and the innovations as well as shortcomings. The second part describes the concepts of overcapacity, technology innovation and PV industry as well as the related theories. The third part of the article introduces the development situation of the PV industry in China as well as the determination and characteristics of its overcapacity risk. The fourth part illustrates the deficiencies on research and development ability of domestic PV industry and its mechanism of leading to overcapacity. The fifth part puts forward the countermeasures and suggestions to promote China’s PV industry technology innovation ability. The sixth part summarizes the whole article.