Chapter 271 Third Generation Perovskite Cell Technology

"Mr. Yang, Happy New Year." After saying that, Chen Yuanguang handed over a red envelope.

On the first working day after the New Year, Chen Yuanguang stood in front of Guangjia Aerospace's headquarters building in Mianyang and handed out red envelopes to employees one by one.

This is also the custom in Guangdong Province.

"Thank you, God of Light." Yang Jiashan bowed after receiving the red envelope.

Guangjia Aerospace's office building in Mianyang was almost given for free by Mianyang.

After Guangjia Aerospace landed in Mianyang, students majoring in aerospace in the entire southwest region now have a new place to go.

"Tianmin, Happy New Year."

After the Lunar New Year, time seems to have been accelerated.

In March, the perovskite technology research group supported by the American Department of Energy announced that they had achieved a technological breakthrough and had developed technology for industrial large-scale production of perovskite batteries.

As early as after China's technological breakthrough, American chose CubicPV as the industry leader to lead the solar energy project of the MIT Research Center.

The research center has previously been studying how to use automation and artificial intelligence to optimize the production process of tandem solar panels.

After CubicPV took over, both perovskite cells and production process optimization were promoted together.

CubicPV announced that their process can achieve a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 37%, and at the same time, through automated technology, large-scale production of photovoltaic modules can reduce costs to extremely low levels.

In other words, the entire project can be carried out in America because the demand for labor is very small.

Shortly after CubicPV announced its technological breakthrough, the Gates Foundation announced that it would invest an additional $100 billion in CubicPV, with them leading the investment and other Silicon Valley companies following suit.

Since its inception, CubicPV's main supporters have included Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a subsidiary of the Gates Foundation.

CubicPV announced that it will invest $100 billion to build factories in Texas and Massachusetts.

The environmental protection forces in these two places are not strong, various NGO organizations are relatively weak, and there are tax incentives.

Why can't the American manufacturing industry be well developed? Even clean energy like photovoltaics is being criticized by environmental protection organizations.

It is a photovoltaic plant using the most advanced technology of America. It is a wonder if it can be done well.

TSMC is also building a chip factory. The one it invested in in Japan has been in production for more than a year, while the factory in America is still under construction.

Many of TSMC's engineers who were forced to move to America have been working from home for more than a year.

America's efficiency is impressive. Even TSMC, a company that brings its own dog food, is about to collapse, and the market is being handed over to others for nothing.

After the outer islands were gone, they really didn’t dare to go back to 4v, and now they are stuck.

At the groundbreaking ceremony of CubicPV, the owner of the White House personally attended:
“This is an exciting moment! CubicPV’s technological breakthrough proves that America’s backwardness in a few technological fields is only temporary, America’s innovation mechanism still exists, and our source of innovation power always exists.

We will soon be able to catch up with the technological breakthroughs achieved by our competitors.

This is a great victory, another iconic moment for the return of American manufacturing! Fight! "

To be honest, not many Americans are happy. There are even more Chinese who are happier than Americans.

Mainly because this thing is too high-end and does not require many front-line workers, all it needs are engineers.

Ordinary workers and front-line blue-collar workers have no way of getting jobs from this project.

When I returned to the White House, I said I wanted to bring back manufacturing and jobs to the rednecks.

To be honest, in recent years, there is almost no manufacturing industry returning to America. Most of it has gone to Mexico and Southeast Asia.

Although the media supported by the Elephant Party have exaggerated the significance of this matter, photovoltaics is a big business, which means that we are on the same starting line as China's photovoltaics.

We can force our allies to buy only American photovoltaic panels and not Chinese ones.

This is a huge market.

If we consider that environmental protection is the general direction in the future and all countries must achieve carbon neutrality, then this market will not be a small number no matter how you estimate it.

But it was useless because it failed to create job opportunities for lower-class Americans.

Not to mention that after the immigration bill brought in Chinese people, many people believed that this seriously affected their employment opportunities.

No one is very excited, and this photovoltaic conversion efficiency is just what CubicPV said verbally. China has been selling components with this photovoltaic conversion efficiency for almost two years.

On the contrary, some people in China are even more excited. You see, a lighthouse is a lighthouse. It just didn't exert any strength before, but it will catch up with you once it exerts its strength.

As for why they didn't make an effort before, they couldn't explain it. The answer is that the mechanism of Lighthouse is invincible in the world, and they shouldn't be proud of the small breakthroughs in recent years.

This kind of rhetoric has been consistent.

From some small achievements in the economy to some small achievements in the military to some small achievements in scientific and technological breakthroughs, in short, what you have are all small achievements, while what the Americans have are all Zenith technology.

Those people in China who knelt down psychologically in the 90s have never stood up again.

Until JinkoSolar issued an announcement:
"We plan to invest 100 billion RMB to build a next-generation photovoltaic module production plant."

Subsequently, leading domestic photovoltaic companies such as Longi Green Energy and Tongwei Co., Ltd. also announced that they would invest huge amounts of money to build a new generation of photovoltaic module production lines.

For a time, the entire sector was shaken, and all photovoltaic stocks hit the daily limit. Longi fell from 5000 billion to 1000 billion, and then rose from 1000 billion to 2000 billion. This time it hit the daily limit again.

The entire photovoltaic sector drove the Shanghai Composite Index up by 2 points.

"What the hell? Is there another breakthrough in photovoltaic technology?"

"The next generation of photovoltaic technology, isn't it obvious? Everyone has started to build the next generation of photovoltaic module production lines. Isn't it obvious that the upstream technology supplier has achieved a technological breakthrough? Who else can be the upstream technology supplier? Guangjia Aerospace.

The only regret is why Guangjia Aerospace didn’t go public? Huaguo Aerospace can go public, why can’t Guangjia Aerospace go public! "

"The Americans just announced the success of their research on perovskite batteries, and now domestic manufacturers have made a technological breakthrough? Are they learning from Intel to squeeze toothpaste?"

"It's obvious that you are squeezing out the toothpaste to make your competitors unable to survive. I just announced that I would invest 100 billion US dollars to build a factory, and you have a technological breakthrough right after that."

"The Chinese are still too kind. If it were me, I would wait until the Americans had built half of the factory before announcing a technological breakthrough, leaving you stuck in a dilemma. If you retreat, you'll lose billions of dollars to improve your level, and if you advance, you might just waste $100 billion."

"If you ask me, announcing it at this time is the most murderous and heartbreaking.

It is clear that the photovoltaic industry has a future. China's monopoly is because no one can compete with China, not because this market is important.

As the photoelectric conversion efficiency of photovoltaic modules becomes higher and higher, the photovoltaic industry will only become more and more important. If you don’t follow the announcement of a technological breakthrough now, you will fall further and further behind until you can’t keep up.

You will lose if you follow.

For the Chinese, they would rather you not follow. If you follow, you will only lose this time. If you don’t follow, there will be no competitors in China’s photovoltaic industry in the future.

This is just like if the United States did not insist on keeping chip manufacturing in its own country, it would have been so troublesome to get it back later.

As the influence of the United States declines, it will no longer have the ability to bring the photovoltaic industry back to its home country. If we don’t catch up this time, we will never catch up again.”

“Damn, I didn’t get on board. I was wondering why the photovoltaic sector has been receiving capital inflows and has been rising moderately. It turns out there is such a major positive factor.

This is obviously a case of funds rushing ahead.”

Investors in the stock forum had heated discussions, but even on platforms like Weibo, people may not understand what the next generation of photovoltaic technology is and the background of American's factory construction.

The guys in the stock exchange forum are so tired of pressing their calculators that they are about to smoke. They can calculate the company's revenue for you based on some external statistical data, and they are very clear about the interpretation of this kind of news.

After all, people make money from this, and when it comes to money, everyone is honest and no one pretends to know something.

"It's uncomfortable. Not just ordinary discomfort."

The White House doesn't care because the money was not allocated by America. The construction of CubicPV's factory was a spontaneous act of the company and it was also funded by Silicon Valley.

CubicPV was not happy. Its CEO Frank van Mierlo stood up and advocated in Mitai's podcast that the American government should give greater support to new energy companies:
“It turns out that solar energy is energy agriculture, so yield per acre is critical. Over the past few decades, we have been continuously improving the efficiency of solar panels, and the emergence of perovskite cell technology has given us the dawn of a breakthrough in photovoltaic conversion efficiency.

Our Chinese colleagues have set a very good example for us in this regard.”

Mitai said: Frank, you are a veteran in the photovoltaic industry. You know a lot about energy technology and climate change, especially solar energy. I want to start there. For people who are new to solar energy, can you talk about the current situation of solar energy? "

“The photovoltaic industry has made great progress in the past few decades, and in the past five years, after the breakthrough of perovskite cell technology, its progress has increased rapidly again.

It's like there was a 30-degree growth curve that was rising before, but in the past four years it has been a 45-degree growth curve.

Initially, when solar power was first invented in the lab, its peak cost was about $10 per watt. Five years ago, it was about 5 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour. Now if we choose photovoltaic modules from China, the cost can be reduced to less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. We have seen a significant reduction in cost.”

Mitai asked: "You just mentioned the past four years. Are these four years related to Dr. Wright's invention?"

In America, Wright is very well-known. If you watch CNN frequently, you will see the name Wright appear every now and then. He is even more well-known than Musk in China and is comparable to Bill Gates in China.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, the popularity of these three people in China should decrease in order.

Frank nodded: "Of course, Dr. Wright was the first to realize the industrialization of perovskite batteries, and has optimized the process in the past four years. Its photoelectric conversion efficiency has been further improved.

According to the latest news in the industry, under the leadership of Dr. Wright, their technology seems to have been iterated again. If they follow the latest technology from China, I expect they will be able to reduce the cost to close to 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.

This is very exaggerated.

Four years ago, although there were some composite thin-film technologies in the photovoltaic market, they were mainly made of silicon, and 80-90% of the market was occupied by silicon. Now the share of perovskite has exceeded 40%, and the entire market is rapidly abandoning pure silicon panels.

In the past four years, this technology has been monopolized by Chinese manufacturers. Before 2020, I had visited China 40 times, trying to understand their photovoltaic industry and their competitiveness.

During these 40 visits to China, I think the reason why they were able to reduce costs to such a low level is related to the state-led support, China's high-quality engineering group and stable policies. Chinese engineers are incredibly cheap.

I remember it very clearly. I asked my Chinese colleague how much an engineer with five years of mature experience earned. His answer was US$1500 a month. Yes, only US$1500.

I remember very clearly that he was very proud and said, Frank, this is the key factor why we are able to keep costs so low.

The same engineer in America would need at least $5000 a month, or even more.

What shocked me even more was that their R&D staff salaries could be even lower, an advantage that American could never compare to.

For this reason, when the White House signed the International Student Act, CubicPV began to recruit people in China. When we offered a salary of $5000, resumes of Chinese engineers filled our mailbox. We were able to recruit much better talents than American engineers of the same price.

In the past, we have recruited a lot of outstanding Chinese engineers, helped them to get visas, and solved their housing problems after arriving in Texas. They have strong adaptability and get into work very quickly. This decision of the White House is very correct.

Recruiting Chinese engineers is the best way to help American manufacturing return to China. Because this will not only help strengthen your own strength, but also help weaken the strength of your competitors. "

Frank paused for a moment and said, "Sorry, I'm a little off topic. Let's get back to the topic just now. Before 2020, I went to America 40 times. In the six years from 2020 to 2025, I went to China 50 times.

On average, I go there once every month and a half. Considering the two years when the virus was prevalent, I should go to China once a month.

Dr. Wright helped his Chinese counterparts achieve rapid profit growth, and their front-line engineers' salaries also increased. However, compared with the profits of photovoltaic companies, the growth rate of Chinese engineers' salaries soon encountered a bottleneck. "

"So what we can see is that China's advantages are so obvious that CubicPV needs to keep going to China," said Mitai.

Frank said: "Yes, China has made rapid progress in the past four years with the help of perovskite technology."

"Does that mean America has no chance of catching up? Especially since you just mentioned that China has entered the third generation of perovskite battery technology," Mitai asked.

(End of this chapter)