Granular silicon has obvious low-cost advantages and GCL Technology is the leading manufacturer

Granular silicon is granular polycrystalline silicon with an average particle size of about 2mm produced in a fluidized bed using chemical vapor deposition. It is mainly used as a dopant to be doped with other polycrystalline silicon materials to produce silicon wafers. GCL Technology is a leading granular silicon manufacturer in my country and globally.

The traditional polysilicon production process mainly adopts the modified Siemens method. After synthesis, purification, reduction, exhaust gas recovery, hydrogenation, post-processing and other processes, the product is rod-shaped silicon. The improved Siemens method consumes a lot of electricity, accounting for 30%-40% of the total production cost, and the conversion efficiency is low, so the overall production cost is high; in addition, the improved Siemens method has high carbon emissions and is not in line with the “double carbon” development goal .

According to the “China Granular Silicon Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report 2023-2028” released by the Industrial Research Center, granular silicon The silicon production process is relatively simple, including hydrogenation, distillation, disproportionation, reduction, tail gas recovery and other processes. It requires less equipment, lower investment costs, and low power consumption, which is only 20%-30% of the improved Siemens method, and The conversion efficiency is high, so the advantage of low production cost is obvious. In addition, the carbon emissions during the production process of granular silicon are significantly reduced by 80%, which meets the requirements of “dual carbon” development; granular silicon is spherical in shape, has high volume density, good fluidity, and is not easily broken, which can reduce transportation costs and crystal growth. cost.

In the context of increasing environmental pressure and energy structure adjustment, new energy power generation has become an important part of the power industry, and solar power generation is one of the mainstream technologies for new energy power generation. According to data released by the National Energy Administration, as of the end of December 2022, the country’s cumulative installed solar power capacity reached 393 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 28.1%. Silicon is an important raw material in the solar power generation industry, and its cost directly affects the cost of solar power generation. Granular silicon has obvious low-cost advantages and greater market development potential.

However, the production of granular silicon is prone to problems such as high impurity content and low product purity, which requires high technical strength of production companies. GCL Technology is the most representative granular silicon manufacturer in my country and the world. It has advanced production technology and can produce solar-grade granular silicon and electronic-grade granular silicon. It has built solar-grade granular silicon production bases in Xuzhou, Leshan and Baotou. , has built electronic-grade granular silicon demonstration projects in Xuzhou and Ningxia.

As of the end of 2022, GCL Technology’s effective production capacity of granular silicon has reached 140,000 tons. The annual granular silicon output in 2022 will be 45,600 tons, a year-on-year increase of 537.3%. In addition to GCL Technology, Tianhong Company is also developing the granular silicon market. It has established a joint venture with REC of the United States, Tianrui Silicon Materials, a subsidiary. It currently has solar-grade granular silicon production capacity, but it does not yet have the production capacity of electronic-grade granular silicon.

Industry analysts people said that because granular silicon has the advantage of replacing rod-shaped silicon, GCL Technology plans to withdraw from the rod-shaped silicon market and expand granular silicon Production capacity, it is planned to expand production capacity by more than 300,000 tons in the three years from 2023 to 2025, combined with the expansion plans of other companies such as Tianrui Silicon Materials, it is expected that by 2025, my country’s granular silicon production capacity will reach 750,000-800,000 tons, with a growth rate higher than The demand for silicon materials in the solar power generation industry is growing rapidly, and my country’s granular silicon industry will have a greater risk of overcapacity in the future.