Photovoltaic utilization model innovation is imperative

Actively exploring new models of photovoltaic utilization will be the top priority for the future development of photovoltaics.

"my country's photovoltaic installed capacity continues to grow rapidly. In the first half of this year, the newly installed installed capacity reached 78.42 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity exceeded 470 million kilowatts. Photovoltaic has officially become the second largest power source in my country's installed capacity." In the recently held "first-class photovoltaic industry high-quality At the "Development Forum", Li Chuangjun, director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, said, "In the same period, photovoltaic power generation continued to increase, and the overall consumption and utilization remained at a high level. In the first half of the year, the national photovoltaic power generation exceeded 260 billion kWh , an increase of about 30% year-on-year, and an average utilization rate of 98%.

With continuous breakthroughs in technology and applications, my country's photovoltaic industry has taken the lead in entering the "no man's land", but the high proportion of photovoltaic access will inevitably bring new challenges. Many industry experts said that actively exploring new models of photovoltaic utilization will be the top priority for the future development of photovoltaics.

Promising future
Wang Shijiang, Secretary-General of China Photovoltaic Industry Association, said: "After decades of development, the photovoltaic industry has become one of the few strategic emerging industries in China that have the advantages of international competition, realize end-to-end independent control, and are expected to be the first to become a model of high-quality development. Industry is also an important engine to promote China's energy transformation. From the perspective of industry, in the first half of 2023, the output growth rate of China's four main links of polysilicon, silicon wafers, cells, and components all exceeded 60%; from the perspective of import and export, in 2022 , China's exports of photovoltaic products, including silicon wafers, batteries, and modules, exceeded US$50 billion. In the first half of this year, the total export volume of photovoltaic products reached US$29 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%, ranking among the "new three types" of exports; from the perspective of application In 2022, China's newly installed photovoltaic capacity will rank first in the world for 10 consecutive years. In the first half of this year, the newly installed photovoltaic capacity exceeded 78 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 154%.
The photovoltaic industry has achieved fruitful results. From the perspective of the industry, facing the future, especially under the leadership of the "dual carbon" goal, my country's photovoltaic industry has more potential. Qian Zhimin, secretary of the party group and chairman of the State Power Investment Group Co., Ltd., pointed out that according to the data of the China Meteorological Administration, the total amount of photovoltaic resources in the country is about 130 billion kilowatts, and the amount of technology that can be developed exceeds 40 billion kilowatts, which provides the basis for the intrinsic security of energy. Assure. Increasing the development and utilization of new energy, increasing the proportion of new energy use in various industries, and increasing the substitution of new energy for oil and gas are the only ways for my country to ensure energy security.
Wang Shijiang further said: "On the one hand, recent central documents have made it clear on many occasions to speed up the construction of a clean and low-carbon new power system, in which photovoltaic power generation will play a vital role. On the other hand, the cost of photovoltaic power generation continues to decline, which will It lays the foundation for large-scale replacement of fossil energy on a larger scale around the world. Especially at the moment when "high temperature and power shortage" are frequent, photovoltaic is undoubtedly the best, fastest and most effective solution. It is expected that my country's photovoltaic installed capacity is expected to Reaching 150 million kilowatts, the global photovoltaic installed capacity is expected to exceed 300 million kilowatts."
High ratio brings new challenges
The development of the photovoltaic industry is in full swing, but the unprecedented high proportion of new energy access has also brought new challenges to the power system. Guan Xiaohong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and chief scientist of the National Energy Storage Technology Industry-Education Integration Innovation Platform of Xi'an Jiaotong University, said frankly that under the structure of traditional energy and power systems, primary energy is converted into electrical energy and connected to the grid. Without energy technology, the power system must meet the real-time supply and demand balance, which brings fundamental challenges to the utilization of highly uncertain renewable energy.
Guan Xiaohong said that the full application of energy storage technology will be the key to the utilization of renewable energy. "Energy storage technology can realize the real-time balance between the supply and demand of the energy system, solve the problems of abandoning wind, light and water caused by the uncertainty of renewable energy, and realize the full utilization of renewable energy."

Wang Chengshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an expert in power system distribution network technology, believes that the proposal of a new power system with new energy as the main body has brought a new direction to the development of my country's power system. As one of the links, the power distribution network is concerned with residential users. It is also a major infrastructure for safely delivering electric energy to thousands of households. However, under the new situation, the role of the power distribution system is undergoing great changes. "The development of the distribution network in the future shoulders more missions. It is not only a supporting platform for renewable energy consumption, but also a data platform for integrating distributed renewable energy; it is also a data platform for the integration of multiple and massive information, which needs to access hundreds of millions of meter data; At the same time, it is also a platform for multi-stakeholder participation and a service platform for electrified transportation. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of future power distribution system development and improve the support capacity of the distribution network, it is necessary to make improvements on the current basis to meet low-carbon, The four characteristics of distribution, decentralization, and digitization."

Utilization mode urgently needs to be innovated
Facing the future, many experts in the industry have proposed that scientific and technological innovation should be accelerated to lead the pace, and model innovation should be used to further promote the high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry.
Wang Shijiang said that in the future, it is necessary to further promote the intelligent, green and high-end transformation of the photovoltaic industry, make full use of the advantages of new energy, create green and low-carbon photovoltaic products, and vigorously promote the green and sustainable development of the industry. In addition, technological innovation should be used to promote high-end industries, accelerate the pace of industrialization of heterojunction and stacked batteries, and actively promote the deep integration of photovoltaics with other industries, so that photovoltaics can be widely used in construction, transportation, agriculture, animal husbandry, etc. Industry, desert control and other fields to achieve the development of diversified application scenarios.
In Guan Xiaohong's view, the greening of the energy and power system is imperative, and economical energy storage technology is the key to utilizing renewable energy, and it is also the basis for providing economical green energy for future computing power systems and communication systems. "Energizing renewable energy with hydrogen can achieve local energy balance through energy storage, conversion, and complementary control optimization, ensure the economy of green energy, and build a market-reproducible distributed zero-carbon energy system. Empowering distribution with hydrogen The zero-carbon smart energy system will deeply change the energy structure, provide zero-carbon energy for distributed data centers and high-speed communication sites in the future, and realize an energy revolution marked by green, distributed, and markets."
Wang Chengshan pointed out that microgrid is an important means of utilizing renewable energy in the future. Microgrid can highly integrate power supply, load, and energy storage together, realize flexible control of source network, load and storage, and finally pursue local balance of source and load as much as possible, which is a major technological innovation to improve the flexible utilization of distributed power. From the current practice, the microgrid has high application value in realizing reliable power supply in areas without electricity and improving the comprehensive utilization efficiency of urban energy.