How LEDs Can Avoid Repeating Photovoltaic Errors

In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of wind power and photovoltaic industry, the government's supportive policy for the development of LED lighting industry has begun to become more rational.

Recently, the "Semiconductor Lighting Energy-saving Industry Plan" (hereinafter referred to as "Planning") issued by the National Development and Reform Commission has lowered the output value of LED lighting in 2015 from 500 billion yuan in the "Twelfth Five-year Plan" to 450 billion yuan.

In addition to relying on government orders, industry players are also exploring the commercial market. This year will be a key year for channel competition among LED lighting companies.

Broad prospects It is understood that LED is an abbreviation for light emitting diodes. Different types of LEDs can emit light of different wavelengths from infrared to blue light. In recent years, the most attractive development of LEDs is the application of fluorescent powder to blue LEDs to convert blue light into blue light. White LED products.

Industry insiders believe that LED can not only directly convert electrical energy into light energy with high efficiency, but also have a service life of up to tens of thousands of hours to 100,000 hours. At the same time, it has the advantages of energy saving, environmental protection, mercury, small size and fast response. High seismic resistance, can be applied in the low temperature environment, the directionality of the light source, high color saturation, and rich color gamut.

In recent years, government plans such as Japan's "21st Century Light Plan," the United States "Next Generation Lighting Plan", the EU "Rainbow Plan", and South Korea's "GaN Semiconductor Luminous Project" have been introduced to support the development of the domestic LED industry.

According to relevant data, in 2010, the global lighting market will reach 100 billion U.S. dollars, and the LED market with broad development prospects is also accelerating.

“Over the past decade, the global LED market has grown at an average annual rate of more than 20%. With conservative estimates, the market size in the next 15 years is expected to reach US$200 billion.” Zhu Xiaoyu, chairman of Zhejiang Zhongzhou Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., predicted.

China is the world's largest producer of lighting sources and lighting fixtures, but it is mainly low-end products, accounting for only 18% of the world market. It is large and not strong. It is of great significance to develop LED industry and enhance international competitiveness. To this end, China launched the National Semiconductor Lighting Project in October 2003, and promoted the development of the domestic LED industry and lighting industry through policy guidance and incentive measures.

In recent years, with the support of local governments at all levels, LED industrial parks have mushroomed.

It is understood that China's LED industry has formed four major regions (the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, Jiangxi, Jiangxi, the northern region), the seven major bases (Dalian, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanchang, Xiamen, Yangzhou, Shijiazhuang) of the industrial structure.

Mainly rely on the government China's LED industry started relatively late, but in the face of such a vast market, local governments from the region's own interests, and vigorously support the development of LED companies in the region. The long-term “zero barrier” access principle has led the LED industry to “contaminate” with many “bad habits” such as “industry chaos, product miscellaneous, and enterprise difficulties”, and the industry as a whole has presented a situation of “not getting high or not low”.

“Since the rise of the industry, government support has been the mainstay, and the independent development of enterprises has assisted indirectly, which has indirectly contributed to the dependence of companies and slowed down the pace of non-government market development.” Industry insiders believe.

According to reports, in order to implement the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” energy-saving and emission reduction plan, the state has begun to increase subsidies for the LED lighting industry since 2009. Thousands of companies have invested in the LED industry one after another, many of which are in order to get a share of the state subsidies and enjoy various benefits such as tax deductions, subsidies, and cheap industrial land.

Some companies’ net profits depend on government subsidies more seriously, and state subsidies account for a significant portion of their profits. China's leading LED companies are also unhappy. In 2012, Sanan Optoelectronics, a listed company, reported a profit of 667 million yuan in the third quarter, of which subsidies were as high as 328 million yuan.

The huge amount of subsidies has caused the relevant companies to invest in more than just impulses. Unlimited expansion of its own production capacity, reckless acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions of related companies, blindly pursued large-scale production and economies of scale, and did not focus on R & D and core technologies to improve the company's core competitiveness.

According to industry insiders, at present, LED core technology—chip technology is mainly controlled by the United States. Part of it is held in the hands of China’s Taiwan. Mainland China is mainly a LED OEM base. The Pearl River Delta is a gathering area with larger market and midstream and downstream enterprises. . Unable to grasp the core technology and LED lighting products cost imbalance is still the LED industry's flaws.

If LED companies that rely on government subsidies for the day do not “awaken” as quickly as possible, their future outcomes will be the embarrassing situation for China's emerging industries such as wind power and photovoltaics.

Taking wind power as an example, in 2012, the installed capacity of wind power in China reached 60.83 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world. Its development speed is similar to that of the LED industry. However, in 2012, it fell into the quagmire of losses in the entire industry. The domestic wind turbine manufacturing leader Huarui Wind Power, which had developed at a rocket-like speed, repeatedly “stopped work”.

In contrast, China’s LED companies have claimed more than 80 LED lighting companies that closed down in 2012 in the Guangdong region, which has a Chinese semiconductor industry cluster; Foshan has nearly 10% of LED lighting companies closed in 2012; LED lighting companies in Dongguan and Zhongshan also Deeply collapsed cold wave. Of the 20 LED companies listed, 11 had a net profit decline.

Blind development will only lead to lack of competitiveness, and it will not be able to escape the fate of being eliminated in the market. The huge amount of state financial subsidies has not only made these companies growing up in the greenhouses “new born”, but has become a catalyst for their “premature”. At the same time, it is difficult for the state’s finances to afford companies that are increasingly large but do not benefit as much as subsidies.

Commercial LED lighting market to be started The current government subsidy for LED products is more concentrated in the public lighting field, in order to increase the government's macro-control, whether this move can slow down the time LED enters civilian lighting has yet to be considered.

However, if the LED industry wants to avoid the old road of China's photovoltaic industry, it must rely on the government on the one hand, and open up the commercial market on the other hand, walking on two legs.

"Planning" pointed out that the proportion of China's LED lighting in the overall lighting market will increase from 0.2% in 2010 to 20% in 2015. By 2015, the scale of China's LED lighting industry will reach 450 billion yuan, of which LED lighting applications will reach 180 billion yuan.

Nguyen Jun, deputy secretary-general of the National Semiconductor Lighting Engineering R&D and Industry Alliance, said that in 2012, the output value of China's LED lighting applications was about 30 billion yuan. It is inferred that China's LED lighting industry will achieve rapid growth of 6 times in the next three years.

“The domestic LED lighting now has two mainstream markets. One is the government-led streetlights and public lighting; the other is the energy-saving transformation of commercial lighting. The civilian LED lighting market is still very small.” said Ding Fei, board secretary of BDO Runda, The commercial LED lighting market is starting up, and many real estate renovations have begun to use LED lights. In the future, the LED market will be transformed from government to government and market “two-wheel drive”.

“The LED lighting commercial market will rise this year, because from the perspective of application technology, product prices, etc., the degree of agreement between LED lighting and demand has already been reached,” said Bian Difei, a director and vice president of Huacan Optoelectronics in the LED lighting chip industry. Higher and higher."

In addition to relying on government orders and the development of commercial LED energy-saving products, major LED companies should put their vision farther away and formulate and develop higher-level services such as LED energy-saving solutions so that they can make enterprises more competitive. In order to avoid the old road of photovoltaic and wind power.