Under the background of “carbon neutralization”, it is a general trend to vigorously develop solar photovoltaic and other clean energy industry. According to the latest report of China Photovoltaic Industry Association, the newly installed capacity of photovoltaic in China reached 54.88GW in 2021, an increase of 13.9% over the same period last year, a record high. The investment in photovoltaic power generation in Europe and the United States and other countries is also increasing, and the global photovoltaic installed capacity will reach 170GW in 2021.
As an important part of photovoltaic inverter (DC to AC), IGBT is widely used in photovoltaic and other fields. With the continuous growth of photovoltaic installed capacity, the demand for IGBT is also rising rapidly. Recently, there has been news that IGBT, a big international company, is out of stock on the market, and this situation also provides an opportunity for the development of domestic IGBT industry.
The photovoltaic IGBT market will reach 10 billion yuan in 2025
In recent years, the photovoltaic industry has been booming. In 2021, the installed capacity of new photovoltaic power generation in China reached 54.88GW, ranking first in the world for nine consecutive years. The China Photovoltaic Industry Association also predicts that the new installed capacity of photovoltaic in China will reach 75GW in 2022 and the average annual installed capacity in China will reach 83GW~99GW in 2022-2025. At the same time, the export market is also growing. A few days ago, the European Union issued a roadmap for energy independence, aiming to start with natural gas and get rid of its dependence on Russian energy imports by 2030. On March 15th, the European Council adopted the carbon Border Regulation Mechanism (CBAM). Experts believe that there is a high probability that Europe will accelerate the layout and application of photovoltaic, and the new installed capacity of photovoltaic in the European Union this year may exceed expectations.
In this case, the market space of IGBT, as the core device of photovoltaic inverter, has also been greatly expanded. In this regard, Xiang Jie, chairman of the board of directors of Saijing Technology, pointed out that at present, countries around the world have reached a consensus on the seriousness and urgency of climate change, and many countries, including China, have issued the goal of “carbon neutralization” one after another. In order to achieve this goal, relevant measures need to be taken in power generation, transmission and distribution, power consumption and other links. In this way, it is necessary to build a sustainable green energy development system in many aspects, such as energy and industrial structure, technology and standards, as well as supporting policies. As the core component of photovoltaic inverter, IGBT will be directly driven by the development of this market.
The person in charge of Infineon also said that in the next ten years, electrification and digitization will become an important driving force for industrial and social development. Electrification involves every link of the power value chain, including power generation, power transmission and transformation, energy storage and power consumption, in which photovoltaic is one of the power generation links. Power semiconductors including IGBT play an important role in the whole power value chain. With the advance of electrification, the market scale of power semiconductors will continue to grow in the future.
According to reports, the photovoltaic inverter is the core component of the solar photovoltaic system, which can convert the direct current generated by the solar cell into alternating current that meets the power quality requirements of the power grid, and can be used with general AC power supply equipment. The performance of photovoltaic inverter can affect the stability, power generation efficiency and service life of the whole photovoltaic system. In the inverter circuit, it is necessary to use semiconductor power devices with switching characteristics, such as IGBT, to control each power device to turn on and off in turn, and then couple the transformer to boost or step down, and finally realize the conversion from AC to DC.
It is worth noting that the service life of electronic components such as IGBT in the inverter is generally 10-15 years, while the operation cycle of photovoltaic modules is 25 years, so the inverter needs to be replaced at least once in the life cycle of photovoltaic modules. This also further expands the use of IGBT in photovoltaic systems.
It is estimated that the demand for IGBT in China’s photovoltaic market in 2021 is about 1.5 billion yuan. If you add in the demand for export inverters from Chinese inverter manufacturers, this scale is nearly 4 billion yuan. With the increasing demand for renewable energy in the market, the demand for IGBT will continue to grow. It is estimated that by 2025, the IGBT demand for new installed capacity plus replacement installed capacity will reach 10 billion yuan.
Photovoltaic IGBT requires very high reliability
At present, the automotive market and photovoltaic system are the two largest application markets of IGBT, and they are also the most concerned by the industry. IGBT technology is also developing to meet the needs of these two major markets. Xiang Jie said that in order to meet the lightweight and high power density of electric vehicle electric drive system, vehicle IGBT needs to achieve low power loss and high switching frequency. In addition, the electric vehicle topology is a typical three-phase inverter bridge, so the automobile electric drive IGBT module is generally packaged by 6in1 module or half-bridge module.
Relatively speaking, the voltages of photovoltaic panels are diverse, so the topology of photovoltaic inverters is also different. micro inverters generally use IGBT single-tube discrete devices; 1000V series photovoltaic inverters use T-type three-level modules; 1500V series inverters use type I three-level modules; 1500V centralized inverters use half-bridge modules to configure type I three-level topology. In other words, when IGBT is used in different photovoltaic inverters, it is necessary to choose different characteristics and packaging products according to the actual needs of the system configuration.
Influenced by the application side, IGBT also shows different technology trends. First of all, the reliability requirements of photovoltaic IGBT will be very high. Photovoltaic is to invert the direct current to alternating current and then upload it to the power grid. “this kind of circuit is not like the industrial control field, because the industrial control field is worried about overload, the industrial control field often uses the IGBT module to step down the voltage, for example, the rated current of the module is 100A, and the drop is used for 40A-50A. Photovoltaic inverter enterprises will basically use the performance of IGBT modules to the extreme, so the reliability requirements of IGBT chips are also higher than those in the industrial control field. ” Some relevant R & D personnel told reporters.
The development of photovoltaic power module technology can be carried out from the aspects of chip design, packaging and module manufacturing to ensure the reliability of the products. For chip technology, one is to optimize and upgrade the performance of silicon IGBT and diodes, and the other is to use new materials such as SiC, in which the demand for SiC diodes in string inverters has become more and more extensive. In terms of packaging, we need to meet the requirements of reliability, and we also need to consider the adoption of new devices, such as low stray inductor packaging that makes SiC devices give full play to their performance. In the manufacturing of the module, it is necessary to adopt a strict manufacturing process to ensure the consistency and reliability of the module, as well as green manufacturing technology and environmentally friendly materials to contribute to the sustainable development of the society.
Another noteworthy trend is that with the rapid growth of the distributed photovoltaic market in recent years, higher requirements will be put forward for the IGBT single tube. In May 2021, the National Energy Administration proposed that “under the premise of ensuring safety, encourage qualified household photovoltaic projects to be equipped with energy storage” and “household photovoltaic power generation projects shall be guaranteed by power grid enterprises to be absorbed by the grid.” With the help of relevant policies, distributed photovoltaic and storage allocation is expected to usher in large-scale development. IGBT single tube solution is mainly used in distributed photovoltaic. Driven by demand, IGBT single tube is expected to usher in a new wave of development.
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