The west is not bright, the east is bright.
Faced with the pressure of the "double reverse" in the United States and Europe, the Chinese government has increased its support for the photovoltaic industry, which also provides conditions for Chinese photovoltaic companies to switch their bows and return to the domestic market.
In July 2012, the government issued the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Solar Power Development", which further increased the installed capacity targets for 2015 and 2020 to 21GW and 50GW. In October of the same year, the State Grid issued the "Opinions on Doing a Good Job in Distributed Photovoltaic Power Generation Grid-connected Services", opening the time for distributed grid-connecting and fully supporting distributed energy generation. In the following years, policies such as kilowatt-hours subsidies, photovoltaic poverty alleviation, front-runner projects, household photovoltaics, and green certificate transactions have appeared successively.
In difficult times, Chinese photovoltaic companies have also demonstrated sufficient resilience. A batch of companies fell, another batch of companies stood up, and with technological upgrades, they stood firmer.
The photovoltaic industry can be roughly divided into silicon materials, silicon wafers, solar cells, modules, and power stations from upstream to downstream. Today, in these sub-sectors, a number of leading companies with advanced technology have emerged.
The technology import substitution revolution of polysilicon materials broke out first. The development of the domestic polysilicon industry began in Sichuan, and companies such as Emei Semiconductor, Xinguang Silicon Industry, and Ledian Tianwei emerged. But at that time, polysilicon technology was mainly monopolized by several major manufacturers in the United States, Germany, and Japan. China had neither core technologies for large-scale production nor key equipment. In the face of overseas technological blockades, many companies that entered the polysilicon industry in the early stages mostly came with vigor and ended in silence.
What changed all this was Zhu Gongshan and his GCL Group.
In 1958, Zhu Gongshan was born in the rural village of Donggou Town, Funing County, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, and was the third child at home. Although it is located in a corner, Donggou Town has a long history, and "there are generals in the military, important figures in politics, giants in business, and great scholars in academia." In 1990, Zhu Gongshan resigned from his hometown of Jiangsu Yancheng Light Industry Bureau's automated complete equipment factory to go to the sea to do business and founded the predecessor of GCL Group-Shanghai Xiecheng Electric Complete Set Factory in Shanghai. In 1996, GCL Group ushered in its first adjustment and development year, and Zhu Gongshan began to deploy in the thermoelectric field. Over the next ten years, GCL worked step by step and built more than 20 power plants. In 2007, GCL-Poly integrated more than 10 power plant assets and successfully landed in the Hong Kong stock market, and Zhu Gongshan also began to be dubbed the "Private Power King".
"It originated in thermoelectricity, and its origins in photovoltaics." In 2005, Zhu Gongshan accidentally took over a polysilicon project abandoned by the original shareholders and began to enter the upstream raw material field of the photovoltaic industry, and established Jiangsu Zhongneng Silicon Industry the following year. In June 2006, Jiangsu Zhongneng's first 1500-ton polysilicon production line started in Sankongqiao District, Xuzhou. After that, the company set foot in the silicon wafer field in 2010, and the GCL Group also ushered in the second strategic adjustment year.
In 2009, GCL-Poly acquired all shares in Jiangsu Zhongneng for HK$26.35 billion. In 2011, GCL Group grew into a global leader in polysilicon materials and wafers. It took Zhu Gongshan 5 years to achieve a magnificent turn from the "private electric king" to the "world silicon king".
In 2010, when industry peers were still saddened by the price of polysilicon materials falling from US$400/kg to US$40/kg, Zhu Gongshan announced to the world in GCL-Poly’s annual report: “The company’s wafer production capacity reached 3.5GW ahead of schedule. The production capacity of raw materials reached 21,000 tons. Through the close cooperation between the US R&D center and Jiangsu Zhongneng, the polysilicon project has completed a number of key technological transformations, and the polysilicon production cost has been reduced to approximately US$22.5/kg."
Although the GCL Group was still under the impact of the “double reverse” in the United States and Europe in 2012, with its continuous immersion in the polysilicon field, the company's production costs have been continuously reduced and its competitive advantage has been strengthened. GCL-Poly also lost 522 million yuan in 2013, but its net profit grew rapidly to 1.52.4 billion yuan in 2014-15. The company became one of the few companies in the market that took the lead in getting out of the shadow of "double reverse".