According to a research report recently released by research firm Trendforce, driven by soaring electricity prices and more competitive kilowatt-hour costs of photovoltaic systems, the global installed capacity of photovoltaic systems is expected to reach 414GW in 2023, while more optimistic forecasts It will reach 446GW. Compared with 2022, the total newly installed capacity will increase by 60.1% or 72.4%. Trendforce has once again raised its forecast value, mainly due to the accelerated growth of China's photovoltaic market and the growth of other mature markets, as well as the growth trend of the global photovoltaic market through the third quarter of 2023.

Some polysilicon manufacturers have recently reduced production, and polysilicon prices have stabilized. However, profit margins of p-type photovoltaic modules are under pressure across the entire value chain, because competition among photovoltaic module manufacturers is very fierce, and due to the increasingly obvious cost-effective advantages of n-type photovoltaic modules, p-type photovoltaic modules have become increasingly popular in some major global photovoltaic markets Photovoltaic module inventories are high.

Trendforce, China's photovoltaic market is seeing large-scale installations of photovoltaic systems, and it is becoming increasingly clear that local planning and construction targets are the lower limit of actual conditions. Meanwhile, Trendforce expects emerging markets such as the Middle East and North Africa, South Africa, Asia and Southeast Asia to add tens of gigawatts of PV systems this year as these regions grapple with chronic power shortages.

More and more utility-scale photovoltaic systems, industrial and commercial (C&I) photovoltaic systems, residential photovoltaic systems and off-grid photovoltaic systems around the world are beginning to deploy energy storage systems. The maturity of low-cost energy storage systems and liquid-cooled battery energy storage systems has promoted the installation of photovoltaic systems.

In the global photovoltaic market, p-type photovoltaic modules are outdated, the limited number of BC photovoltaic cells makes it difficult to reduce prices, the price of HJT photovoltaic cells drops very slowly, and perovskite photovoltaic cells are not really popular. At present, there have been N-type TOPCon photovoltaic cells or photovoltaic cells composed of TOPCon and perovskite that are currently in the research and development stage.

Trendforce also noted in its report that there is a disconnect between some sources of information about historical forecasts and actual developments regarding PV modules, which miss some key factors and lag exponentially behind.

Compare annual growth rates to actual conditions

If you want to predict the annual new installed capacity of photovoltaic systems, you can add the installed capacity of photovoltaic systems connected to the DC side (statistics of officially registered photovoltaic systems + statistics of unregistered photovoltaic systems) plus inventory (offshore, warehouse and project site), using mathematical terms for approximate calculations.

Since the prediction of the future development of the photovoltaic industry, many research institutions will predict that the photovoltaic industry will hardly grow or even shrink, although this is contrary to the observed reality. Looking back at history, the annual installed capacity data of photovoltaic systems have always far exceeded the overly conservative predictions of some research institutions.

So there are two possibilities: The first possibility is that the policy goals of photovoltaic power generation are growing rapidly every time. The new policy scenario assumes that goals remain unchanged and translates this into enacting new policies when old policies expire. So in this case, countries that are currently incentivizing the installation of photovoltaic systems will continue to do so indefinitely. The second possibility is that some research institutions have a habit of significantly underestimating the growth in installed PV system capacity.