The panel concluded that the solar PV and energy storage sectors have actually moved beyond the out-of-date development design of contending on scale and selling at low costs for volume development. With a detailed market shakeout underway, only business with core technological developments, AI-driven efficiency and strong international growth abilities will endure this cycle.
Breaking out of ruthless competitors: from rate wars to multi-dimensional distinction in innovation, applications and patents
The solar PV and energy storage sector formerly counted on scale-driven growth and cost wars to surpass competitors, however this organization design has actually run its course.
Tune Dengyuan, CTO of TCL Zhonghuan, put it clearly: “The market’s old competitive reasoning– contending on rate and scale– is no longer practical. Future competitors will depend upon technological strength, patent portfolios, international functional abilities, and customized services for particular situations.”
He indicated this year’s SNEC exhibit in Shanghai as proof of the shift. In the past, business completed mainly on module power output and conversion effectiveness. Today, exhibit cubicles mainly display end-to-end services customized to particular circumstances.
In reaction to this altering landscape, TCL Zhonghuan has actually embraced a technique of moderate combination. After obtaining Das-Solar, the business broadened its innovative BC solar battery and module production capability. Structure on the early distinction accomplished with its G12 large-format wafers, it is now totally concentrated on updating BC solar batteries based upon advancing screen-printing lithography pattern innovation.
Through the acquisition of Maxeon Solar, it protected more than 1,600 fundamental BC cell patents, developing powerful technical barriers. The business has actually established specialised wafer items, consisting of the Zhufeng series. Suitable with several innovation paths, consisting of TOPCon, HJT, and BC, these items allow release throughout a wide variety of circumstances and assist the business prevent undifferentiated, low-price competitors.
Zhou Chengjun, General Manager of Chint Power, argued that development top priorities should develop together with the market. Making use of his experience in both production and the wider power plant worth chain, he kept in mind that throughout the aid age, the main objective was reducing the levelized expense of energy (LCOE). Today, with electrical power prices totally market-based, the increase of unfavorable electrical power rates highlights the vital worth of PV-storage combination.
“Storage can move energy from low-price time windows for discharge throughout high-price durations. The market has actually moved from optimising single-point performance to increasing general worth,” Zhou stated. The fast development of AI computing and information centres needs power products that integrate inexpensive green energy, versatile dispatch, and high dependability. Chint Power’s R&D is reacting by concentrating on greater power density, versatile policy, long-duration energy storage and system-level intelligence. Eventually, these efforts intend to boost the performance, versatility, and lifecycle worth of PV-storage systems.
Zhu Xuancai, basic supervisor of PV-Storage at Hoymiles, worried that “items need to be specified by their circumstances”. Making use of its electronic devices heritage from a Zhejiang University laboratory, Hoymiles at first attempted to bring domestic storage items straight to abroad markets, just to deal with extreme regional flexibility difficulties. While domestic C&I storage systems usually include two-hour periods, abroad need varieties from one to 4 hours, with local choices for module formats differing extensively.
“You can not utilize existing items to specify consumer circumstances. You need to establish items based upon genuine need, pursue distinction at the application level, and lower expenses throughout the whole worth chain,” Zhu argued. He kept in mind that abroad markets are extremely fragmented– a plain contrast to China’s reasonably unified market– needing business to deepen their regional operations.
Zhang Guangchun, vice-president of Storage at Canadian Solar, mentioned that the market needs to increase full-lifecycle utilisation of PV-storage items and counter short-term rate wars with long-lasting worth. He alerted that low-price competitors is wearing down the credibility of Chinese production. To prosper, the market should move its focus from “contending on cost” to “completing on quality, service, and stability.”
In his view, PV‑storage combination is the inescapable course to dealing with PV curtailment difficulties. As the market moves forward, business can not focus exclusively on scaling up hardware mass production; they need to likewise pay attention to the threats associated with industrialising brand-new innovations and prioritise long-lasting user worth.
Making use of its abroad PV power plant advancement experience, Canadian Solar got in the storage area early and has actually placed itself around high‑end, high‑performance offerings. It was the very first in the market to embrace liquid‑cooling innovation and actively well balanced BMS hardware, and has actually presented these services at scale.
“Actively well balanced BMS addresses the weak-link impact coming from unequal cell ageing. It is a technological service that fixes real‑world discomfort points,” Zhang Guangchun stressed. He alerted that brand-new innovation, R&D, and industrialisation must be dealt with as different factors to consider. Industrial‑scale release requires sensible evaluation, striking a balance in between business returns and more comprehensive commercial and social advantages. The market requires to reinforce oversight of accreditation bodies. Third‑party organizations need to provide robust screening and accreditation services and satisfy their oversight function.
Fan Bin, chairman of Kunshan GCL-Perovskite– a leading perovskite business– went directly to the root of aggressive competitors in c‑Si. He mentioned clearly: “c-Si innovation is nearing its performance ceiling, which is driving the extreme market homogenization we see today. The theoretical effectiveness limitation for c-Si cells stands at 29.4%, and top‑tier lab outcomes are currently approaching this limit. Expanding technological spaces have actually ended up being exceptionally hard. A leading market position can be removed by rivals within 6 months.”
In Fan Bin’s evaluation, the supreme method to break out of this aggressive competitors is to conquer existing effectiveness traffic jams. Developed for cooperation throughout the PV market, GCL-Perovskite has actually established a c‑Si‑perovskite four‑terminal tandem innovation platform that works with varied c-Si cells. Tandem cells constructed on this path boast a theoretical effectiveness of 45%. Pilot‑line modules have actually currently exceeded 30% effectiveness and gotten IEC dependability accreditation.
“The basic service to getting away the market’s fierce competitors is to raise the effectiveness ceiling and construct authentic distinction. Perovskite tandem innovation provides fundamental distinction and can sustain a first‑mover benefit over a longer duration,” Fan Bin kept in mind.
Allen Zhou, vice basic supervisor of PV & & industrial items at TÜV Rheinland Greater China, provided the point of view of a third‑party body. He explained that high‑quality market development counts on reliable third‑party requirements. Offered the fast updating of emerging innovations, screening and accreditation structures need to develop in lockstep. For developments such as perovskite, accreditation bodies are moving from simply test‑oriented work to detailed technical services, quickly establishing brand-new test approaches and partnering with makers to confirm and commercialise brand-new items.
AI application: from conceptual buzzword to real-world performance
As expert system and big AI designs quickly permeate commercial sectors, the PV and storage markets deal with a typical obstacle: AI stays mainly conceptual, with couple of concrete real-world applications.
Throughout the panel, numerous business shared measurable AI results that drive earnings development and performance gains, showing that AI is no longer simply a marketing talking point however is becoming a brand-new source of competitive performance.
Tune Dengyuan of TCL Zhonghuan laid out TCL Group’s AI financial investment on the order of RMB10 billion (US$ 1.5 billion). He kept in mind that TCL made an early push into industry-specific big AI designs, with cumulative AI financial investments reaching the multi-billion-yuan level. Significantly, the ‘X-Intelligence’ vertical domain big AI design has actually created over RMB1 billion in financial advantages for screen panel production.
According to Song, powered by the group’s “X-Intelligence” and “Shenlan (Deepblue)” industry-specific designs, AI has actually been deeply incorporated into core PV production workflows. Throughout the crystal-pulling phase, AI optimises thermal-field control and crucial procedure criteria, pressing the resistivity harmony of silicon ingots above 90%. This has actually considerably enhanced procedure consistency and the variety of heaters each operator can handle. Production performance has actually increased by 5%, providing almost RMB100 million in yearly advantages for the AI application.
Tune exposed that “AI is now reaching intricate procedures, consisting of BC-cell processing and passivation-layer optimisation. Algorithm versions are changing manual experimental screening to continually increase yield and procedure accuracy. Since both display screen panels and PV depend on semiconductor thin-film procedures, technical knowledge can be moved throughout sectors. AI will be a vital structure for the next commercial transformation.”
Zhou Chengjun of Chint Power mentioned that AI has actually been released throughout the whole organization. It powers smart consumer service and skill training in back- and middle-office functions; AI-driven visual quality assessment and smart product screening on the production flooring; patent research study and file preparing in R&D; and AI-enabled O&M systems on the operation side. These applications cut expenses and increase performance throughout the board, working as a fundamental tool for lean business operations.
Zhu Xuancai of Hoymiles provided a various viewpoint on AI advancement. He said that due to the fact that Hoymiles begins as a hardware-centric business, which is incredibly conscious quality style, this is likewise decreasing the AI adoption. To date, the business has actually presented AI-powered client service and made inroads into power-generation forecasting and battery service warranty danger computation. The objective is to measure future guarantee dangers through AI while establishing smart interaction functions to reduce the knowing curve for users. The business prioritises utilize cases that provide concrete company advantages while carefully keeping track of abroad information security threats.
Zhang Guangchun of Canadian Solar categorised AI applications into 3 tiers of worth. At the corporate-office level, by constructing personal databases and reinforcing cybersecurity. Second, at the production level, by incorporating physical and digital designs to optimise production control. Third, at business level, by empowering the brand-new development track of the AI information centre (AIDC), power assistance.
He stressed that in the United States market in specific, where policy limitations restrict power usage for computing-intensive work and AIDC releases trigger high load variations, Canadian Solar leverages an AI-driven load forecasting and storage peak-shaving service. This option charges batteries throughout durations of low computing load and discharges at peak hours, exactly matching the extremely unstable load profiles of information centres and opening brand-new chances in abroad markets.
Fan Bin of GCL-Perovskite kept in mind that the business concentrates on AI-empowered products R&D. “AI has actually entirely improved the R&D paradigm for brand-new PV products,” he stated. “With essentially endless perovskite product mixes, manual trial-and-error is exceptionally ineffective. Utilizing high-throughput automated speculative devices, GCL-Perovskite has actually built up huge quantities of speculative information over 2 years and uses AI to determine optimum product formulas. As datasets grow richer and design precision enhances, the R&D space in between ingenious gamers and standard producers continues to expand, forming a core competitive barrier in this emerging innovation sector.”
AI is likewise being commonly embraced by third-party organizations. Allen Zhou of TÜV Rheinland described that its labs release AI for test-data collection, analysis, and report generation. This considerably improves the performance of screening, assessing, and accrediting emerging innovations. Working along with PV and storage business, TÜV Rheinland assists speed up market development.
Beyond basic item export: going into a brand-new period of local customisation and value-driven worldwide growth
In 2026, abroad markets are poised to end up being the main source of earnings for solar PV and energy storage business. As worldwide policy barriers, local need variations, and compliance limits continue to increase, the period of broad, indiscriminate abroad growth has actually definitively ended. Panellists all concurred that the next stage of international growth depends upon 3 core pillars: region-specific customisation, localised compliance, and the export of brand name worth.
Leveraging TCL Group’s comprehensive globalisation experience, TCL Zhonghuan attained exceptional development in the very first half of the year 2026. Tune Dengyuan reported that abroad sales of cells and modules increased fourfold year-on-year, while wafer sales rose almost 3.7 times, with abroad earnings now representing 25% of the business’s overall.
Tune discussed that TCL Zhonghuan’s method depends on introducing distinguished items customized to particular markets. In Europe, where decentralised PV controls and requires high power density, low carbon footprints, and clear IP, the business concentrates on small-format, all-black BC modules. In the Middle East, utility-scale jobs prioritise high bifaciality, low temperature level coefficients and weather condition resistance, driving need for large-format, high-power BC and 1/3-cut TOPCon modules. In South America, complicated accreditations and varied circumstances have actually led the business to provide integrated PV-storage options.
To support this, Song stressed that technical analysis is performed at the R&D and production phases, making sure smooth coordination throughout the whole worth chain from wafers to modules.
Zhou Chengjun categorised the worldwide market into 3 tiers: high-value, high-barrier markets such as Europe and the United States; essential markets with tariff and localisation requirements, consisting of Saudi Arabia and Turkey; and emerging markets with quickly growing need and varied applications, consisting of South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
He kept in mind that the reasoning of going worldwide has actually progressed from merely “offering items and capability” to “offering options, services, and brand names”. Appropriately, Chint Power’s abroad technique lines up with this shift, constructing long-lasting competitiveness through localised groups and full-lifecycle services.
According to Zhu Xuancai, Hoymiles is pursuing a technique of scaling up from pilot jobs, advancing in a consistent and sensible way. Europe stays its core market, with operations rooted in Germany and the Netherlands before broadening into Eastern Europe. In the Asia-Pacific area, the business utilizes an improved, sub-regional method, going into with a single item and following up with thorough services. For the policy-uncertain United States market, Hoymiles keeps a sensible, wait-and-see position, relying rather on its Brazilian group to serve South America.
“We prioritise markets with feasible release potential customers, prevent the blind pursuit of short-term explosive development, and are slowly broadening our item portfolio,” Zhu included.
As a criteria for PV and storage globalisation, Canadian Solar’s internationalisation method was highlighted by Zhang Guangchun, who summarised it in one sentence: “Canadian Solar demands concentrating on high-value markets, understanding what to do and what not to do.”
Through years of tactical preparation, the business has actually proactively developed localised production capability in Thailand, the United States and Canada. Zhang worried, “Companies going worldwide need to support their core concepts and resolutely prevent reproducing domestic low-price competitors overseas. We should abide by regional laws and market requirements, continue to export top quality items, innovation and trusted services, and secure the global credibility of China’s PV and storage market.”
From the viewpoint of exporting brand-new innovations, Fan Bin explained that high-value markets put a higher premium on effectiveness. Markets like Japan and Europe supply significant premium margins for high-efficiency modules. For GCL-Perovskite, its high-efficiency perovskite tandem modules can command a considerable per-watt premium in these markets.
Offered their present minimal scale, perovskite business are not going worldwide individually. Rather, they are partnering with leading module producers to collectively establish high-efficiency tandem modules, leveraging their partners’ fully grown channels to bring brand-new innovations to market.
Allen Zhou observed that future competitors will no longer be about single items, however rather the synergistic abilities of PV-storage systems. To support this, TÜV Rheinland is engaging previously in business R&D to perform dependability screening, determine threats ahead of time, and minimize advancement expenses. As soon as items grow, the business offers extensive accreditation and full-chain technical services. Leveraging its international network, TÜV Rheinland assists business browse differing global requirements, eventually helping Chinese production in attaining certified, effective worldwide growth.
: ClickNewsandMedia)
