Financial Associated Press, October 26 (Reporter Liu Mengran)The impact of silicon price cuts is beginning to show, with 600438.SH 's profits falling by more than 60% in the third quarter of this year. In response to investors' questions at today's performance presentation meeting, the company's management said that the performance fluctuation was mainly due to the price drop caused by cyclical fluctuations in the entire photovoltaic industry chain, especially the year-on-year contraction in the profitability of high-purity silicon, reflecting the overall situation of the industry. No major changes have taken place at the operational level of the company.

Entering the fourth quarter, the price of polysilicon is still at the bottom. According to the Silicon Industry Branch predicted this week, the new round of transactions of five first-line large factories N-type silicon prices will reach a balance around 7. 7-80000 yuan / ton, P-type reinvestment will reach a balance of 7-73000 yuan / ton.

Talking about the future trend of silicon prices, the management of Tongwei shares said in the exchange that it will mainly depend on the relationship between supply and demand. In the past and at present, with the concentrated production and release of new silicon projects, silicon prices generally show a downward trend.

A reporter from the Financial Associated Press noted that in terms of cost, Tongwei shares still have a certain advantage over their peers. In the first half of this year, the company sold 177700 tons of high-purity silicon, an increase of 64% over the same period last year, with a domestic market share of about 30%. According to the disclosure of the company, the production cost of polysilicon has been reduced to less than 40,000 yuan / ton.

The management said that with the silicon price gradually reaching the cost line of some production capacity in the industry, some relatively backward production capacity will be gradually cleared out in the future, and there is also greater uncertainty in the construction and operation of some new projects. at the same time, considering the high-input and high-risk chemical properties of polysilicon, it is expected to maintain a more reasonable price and gross profit margin in the long run.

The company believes that in the context of short-term relative oversupply and the increase in the proportion of N-type products, it is expected that the differences in the quality of products with different production capacity will also lead to price differentiation.

At present, the company still has new polysilicon capacity under construction. Yongxiang Energy Technology Phase I 120000 ton high purity silicon project has been successfully put into production in the third quarter of this year, and the production capacity is currently climbing. At the same time, Yunnan Tongwei 200000 tons and Baotou 200000 tons of high purity silicon projects started in March and July this year, respectively, and both projects are expected to be put into production in 2024.

Tongwei shares is also the leader in the field of battery chips, according to infolink statistics, shipments for many years ranked first in the industry. As of the first half of the year, the company has formed 90GW solar cell production capacity. At this performance meeting, some investors asked the management whether there was a relevant layout on the current dispute over the hot technical route.

In response, the company responded that it has stored a series of new solar cell technologies, such as TOPCon, HJT, back-contact battery, perovskite / silicon stack and so on.

As for the current popular BC battery technology, Liu Shuqi, chairman and CEO of Tongwei Co., Ltd., said that in terms of back contact battery, the company already has a 100 MW pilot test line, and has simultaneously developed P-type BC battery and N-type BC battery. Among them, P-type TBC R & D batch efficiency reached 25.18%, N-type TBC highest R & D efficiency reached 26.11%.

Liu Shuqi believes that from the historical law of photovoltaic cell technology iteration, new technology to replace the original technology basically needs to meet higher economy and better reliability in order to become the mainstream choice of the market.

For the question "do you think BC battery will be the mainstream technology route in the future", Liu Shuqi believes that although BC battery has the advantages of high aesthetics and high positive power generation efficiency, it is not comparable to PERC and TOPCon battery in terms of mass production economy and reliability, and it is more of a differentiated product at present. As for whether the BC battery route can become the mainstream technology route in the market in the future, there is still great uncertainty, the company will continue to promote the research and development of BC battery technology, and pay close attention to the changes in market demand.

During the exchange, the company also revealed the progress of heterojunction battery business and is steadily promoting the economic and reliability verification under the mass production condition of copper interconnection technology, creating solid conditions for large-scale mass production of HJT.

It is reported that the 21066 version heterojunction (HJT) module independently developed by the company has a front power of 743.68W and a component efficiency of 23.94%, creating a HJT module power record for the fourth time this year. The company has made important breakthroughs in the research and development of advanced technologies such as copper interconnection. The existing 1GW heterojunction production line has completed double-sided microcrystal upgrading and mass production under silicon wafer thickness 110um, with a yield of more than 97%.