Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 417 He hit a brick wall but wouldn't turn back
After LONGi Green Energy launched its next-generation photovoltaic module, named "Halo," it was like firing the starting gun, with major photovoltaic manufacturers rushing to launch their own next-generation photovoltaic modules.

For a time, everyone was discussing photovoltaics, believing it to be a new era of energy revolution.

Veteran stock market investors (or "newbies") are practically burning their brains with calculations, weighing production capacity, revenue, and profits to gauge the potential upside for individual stocks in the photovoltaic sector.

New stock market investors don't care about all that; they only look at emotions and feelings, and they often shout out astonishing slogans, such as "We're going to push the index to 10,000 points."

"Thanks for the invitation. To put it simply, Apollo technology has significantly reduced the cost of going to the moon. Mr. Lei's trip costs one billion US dollars. Even if the price drops to one million US dollars in the future, the moon will still be out of reach for 99.9% of people."

However, this time the photovoltaic module photoelectric conversion efficiency has increased by 100%, the cost of photovoltaic power generation has been greatly reduced, and nighttime power generation has reduced the cost recovery of photovoltaic power plants from five to seven years in the past to about three years now.

And in the foreseeable future, solar panels on the rooftops of homes will become as standard as water heaters.

This will benefit everyone.

Don't say that the new generation of photovoltaic technology will not lead to a reduction in electricity prices; the price of electricity will remain the same.

To put it simply, this means the country will have more abundant foreign exchange reserves, will be more proactive in promoting new energy vehicles, and for us, the security of social security and medical insurance will be greatly improved.

In the past, people have always worried about the bankruptcy of social security because of population, and our generation may not be able to receive social security. However, with the continuous implementation of new technologies, the probability of social security bankruptcy will be greatly reduced.

This will benefit most people.

At the national level, there are also more abundant fiscal reserves to provide welfare to residents, and more tools to address the problem of an aging population.

These macro-level benefits will benefit everyone.

It's the same principle as how, after tax refunds became widespread, everyone received an extra "red envelope" from the government every March.

"Because the paper was published a long time ago, not only in the industry but also in the general public, everyone has been waiting for it to be implemented."

Longi has finally fired the first shot.

Now we can finally talk about its significance.

In my view, this is not just another technological upgrade, but a revolution in the underlying logic of the photovoltaic industry.

Over the past few decades, all our iterations of photovoltaic technology have been like dancing in a "room with a roof".

This roof is the Shockley-Quyther Limit.

We strive to reach the 33.7% ceiling by continuously optimizing material purity and improving battery structure, but we never imagined that we could actually break through that ceiling.

This is a typical example of Lin Ran turning the impossible into the possible.

What Ran Shen and his team did was to redefine the interaction between photons and electrons at the quantum level.

They were no longer satisfied with one photon exciting one electron-hole pair, but instead achieved the amazing process of one photon generating multiple excitons through a complex nonlinear probabilistic optimization model.

It's like carving out a multi-lane highway from a one-way street.

From a technical standpoint, it can be said that skill has approached the level of Tao.

This is completely different from the traditional layered battery.

Stacked solar cells represent a victory for materials engineering. By stacking materials with different band gaps, the absorption spectrum can be segmented, which is a segmented absorption strategy.

This quantum model achieves a leap in energy conversion efficiency within a single-junction cell, representing a revolution that absorbs all energy at once.

Stacked cells have higher costs, poorer stability, and shorter lifespans, which is very different from this structural revolution.

The cost of photovoltaic power generation mainly consists of two parts: first, the BOS cost, which includes land, support structures, cables, construction, etc.; and second, the component cost.

In the past, as component efficiency improved, although the price per watt decreased, the cost of BOS remained relatively fixed.

This breakthrough in efficiency to 40% is revolutionary and will change the economic model of photovoltaics.

With power generation doubling, BOS costs remain almost unchanged.

This means that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for power generation will experience a precipitous drop.

It will make the cost of photovoltaic power generation far lower than any fossil fuel, and may even be lower than nuclear energy in the future.

The improved low-light power generation capability makes the power plant's revenue more stable.

Investors no longer need to worry too much about power generation losses on cloudy days or in the early morning or evening, which greatly reduces investment risk and shortens the investment payback period.

If you have connections to get the goods, I suggest you consider repairing charging stations.

The kind of layout where the top has a new generation of photovoltaic cells and the bottom has a charging station.

They operate the system themselves, selling any excess electricity to the power grid, and supplying electricity directly during the day.

This is definitely a business opportunity, and it will be a sure-fire way to make money for a long time to come.

For a long time, the energy landscape has been dominated by the three major oil companies and natural gas.

While renewable energy is an inevitable trend, its intermittency and volatility are unavoidable pain points.

Although energy storage is developing, its high cost remains a bottleneck.

This quantum photovoltaic technology will directly address these two pain points.

A more stable and efficient photovoltaic power generation system will completely change the world's energy landscape.

As the birthplace of this technology, China will have absolute say and pricing power.

This is no longer a simple industrial advantage, but a monopoly on core technologies.

This advantage is even more strategically significant than our advantages in high-speed rail and 5G.

Because this is energy, the lifeblood of industrial civilization.

We will soon see resource-poor countries like Japan and Korea coming to discuss technology imports.

This technological breakthrough is far more than just a numbers game at a commercial launch event. It represents an industrial revolution driven by fundamental physics theories, elevating the photovoltaic industry from a manufacturing sector to a high-tech industry.

It shows us that in key scientific fields, like aerospace, Burning God has once again transformed China's position from follower to definer. Experts on Zhihu (a Chinese Q&A website) have come forward to analyze its significance. From concept to implementation, it took China a year and a half, and everyone has pushed the previously analyzed significance forward, thanks to the transformation of low-light power generation.

Kazuhiko Sato, the director of the Technology and Environment Bureau of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, invited industry expert Takayuki Nishino, a senior researcher from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tokyo, and Ken Tanaka, an official from the Bureau of International Trade Policy, to discuss countermeasures.

Sato spoke first: "Professor Nishino, Tanaka-kun, I'm sure you've carefully studied the report from LONGi's press conference."

I want to hear your most direct opinions, without any embellishment.

This is no longer just a simple technological lead; could we describe it using the term "dimensional reduction attack"?

Tanaka Kenji's expression was serious: "Director Sato, from the perspective of trade policy, the situation is extremely serious."

This has not only changed the technological landscape of the global photovoltaic market, but may also reshape the balance of power in international energy.

If they can mass-produce 40% efficiency components at a highly competitive price, we will completely lose our pricing power in the global market.

More importantly, we had worked to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern energy through solar power, but now we may face another strategic dependence on China on core energy technologies.

Sato said helplessly, "Dependence is the last thing we want to see."

Professor Nishino, from a technical point of view, is it still possible for us to catch up?

Our company has invested significant R&D resources in heterojunction and perovskite tandem solar cells. Could these efforts have vanished overnight?

Takayuki Nishino's face was extremely gloomy, and he felt as if he had eaten shit: "To vanish into nothingness? No, to bring about one's own destruction! Director, a year and a half ago, when Professor Lin's theoretical model was published in Nature, I submitted a report to the province! I warned that this was a completely different technological direction, a technology that would overturn all existing silicon-based photovoltaics!"
If I'm not mistaken, Professor Lin stated publicly at the time that they would soon be able to mass-produce it.

Takayuki Nishino took a deep breath to calm himself down: "I suggested at the time that Japan should immediately organize resources to conduct simultaneous research, or try to establish technical exchange channels with China."

But what about our companies? They told me that HIT is the pride of Japan, a mature technology roadmap.

They told me that perovskite tandem solar cells are the next generation of mainstream technology.

They poured all their resources into the old track, completely ignoring the possibilities of the future.

That's Professor Lin, the man who built a base on the moon. Why should our company ignore his theories? Although no specific model has been published, its feasibility has been proven theoretically.

And now? All our R&D investments have become laughable sunk costs!
They're still discussing how to increase the heterojunction efficiency in the lab from 35% to 36%, while others have already achieved 40%!

Japanese companies are not just conventionally conservative, nor are they just conventionally stubborn.

This is a classic among classics.

Paul John Florey was a master in polymer chemistry and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1974.

Many of Florey's achievements in his later years were actually major pitfalls, especially in the field of crystal oscillations, and some of his conclusions were wrong.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many Japanese chemists studied under Florey.

These chemists later became leading figures in the field of Japanese chemistry, determining the research direction of polymer chemistry in Japan.

These industry leaders inherited Florey's research, including the flawed parts. Under their guidance, much research in the Japanese chemical industry continues to follow Florey's model to this day!
Meanwhile, the European and American chemical communities began criticizing Florey as early as the 90s. In his hometown of America, his theories in the field of macromolecular crystals were completely re-examined, and today, no institution in the American chemical community would continue to conduct research based on flawed theories.

However, this does not prevent the Japanese chemical, physical, and industrial communities from sending scholars to America year after year to study and repeat the experiments of their predecessors, thus proving the correctness of the Florey model.

If the Florey model is correct, it proves that the contemporary Japanese chemists in the polymer science field are correct, and that the efforts of all the predecessors in the Japanese chemist community since the 1970s have been correct.

The Japanese style isn't about not turning back until they hit a wall, but rather about not turning back even after hitting a wall.

Even today, Japanese companies continue to tirelessly manufacture consumer electronics products such as mobile phones, televisions, and computers that have a distinctly 20th-century style.

The same applies to the photovoltaic field. Even though Lin Ran only proposed a model, and now LONGi Green Energy has already launched its products, the research departments of Japanese companies are not as quick to react as the officials of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. They haven't even bothered to revisit and discuss Lin Ran's paper.

They were still discussing how to perform HIT and heterojunction today.

Japan's technology roadmap mainly consists of two companies: Sharp's HIT and Kyocera's back contact technology. These technologies optimize the performance of silicon-based batteries. No matter how innovative you are, you can't break the Shockley-Quyther limit.

Tanaka Ken asked, "So, we can't catch up in the short term?"

Takayuki Nishino said sadly, "It's impossible in the short term."

This requires entirely new theoretical foundations, entirely new materials, and entirely new manufacturing processes.

This is not a simple technological upgrade; it is a redefinition of the industry.

If we insist on continuing to invest in the old technological path, we will only waste more resources.

We must face reality: China has demonstrated astonishing originality in basic science, especially in applied physics.

Sato took a deep breath: "So, what is our response? What can we do? Should we protect our companies through subsidies, as we have in the past? Or should we seek technological cooperation?"

Ken Tanaka quickly replied, "We will directly seek technology licensing! We have a good relationship with China recently, and we have a lot of cooperation with China in the semiconductor field. We can consider this from a higher strategic level."

We might consider establishing a high-level joint venture with them.

We offer our strengths in precision manufacturing, quality control, and materials science in exchange for their most core technologies.

This will not only allow us to acquire technology, but also keep a portion of the industrial chain in Japan and maintain our competitiveness in high-end manufacturing.

The release of next-generation photovoltaic technology is open to Chinese companies, but not to foreign companies.

A hint of agreement flashed in Sato's eyes, but he quickly fell into deep thought again: "At this point in time, there is no doubt that there are no political issues. Isn't it perfectly normal to compromise with the Chinese?"

When the bigwigs in Chiyoda talked about China, no one dared to say anything about confrontation; at most, they would say it was competition.

When cooperation is mentioned, everyone will wholeheartedly support it and would love to have an even closer economic tie with China.

Such cooperation would have required a very bold political decision in the past.

Now that we can sell Canon NIL, what can't we sell?

My only fear is that it won't sell fast enough and won't fetch a good price.

(End of this chapter)