(Yicai) Sept. 4 -- At a new energy industry investor briefing organized by the Star Market, solar panel makers listed on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-like trading board emphasized energy storage expansion and welcomed a government-led anti-involution campaign intended to curtail fierce low-price competition.

Promoting anti-involution initiatives is conducive to guiding the solar industry back to a rational and orderly development path, with prices along the supply chain expected to gradually recover, Xu Xiaoming, board secretary of CSI Solar, said at the event yesterday.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology met with representatives from 14 photovoltaic businesses and industry associations on July 3, emphasizing the need to address disorderly low-price competition and urging them to improve product quality and phase out outdated capacity.

Based on centralized procurement and bidding, the market has responded positively to the anti-involution initiative call, gradually pushing prices back to relatively reasonable levels, said Li Xiande, chairman of Jinko Solar, adding that winning bid prices are steadily rising, and the market is gradually returning to rationality.

Shanghai-based Jinko Solar is focusing on tunnel oxide passivated contact technology and expects to upgrade 40 percent to 50 percent of its advanced production capacity to higher-efficiency solar cells by the end of the year to support the industry's anti-involution efforts, Li noted.

“Jinko Solar is making great efforts to expand its energy storage business to reach an annual shipment target of 6 gigawatt-hours, thus making it the company's second-largest business growth point,” Li pointed out.

CSI Solar will leverage its energy storage orders, project reserves, and domestic manufacturing cost advantages to make it the company's second growth curve, President Zhuang Yan said.

CSI Solar's 5-gigawatt panel factory in the United States is steadily ramping up operations, with production expected to exceed 3.5 GW this year, Zhuang noted, adding that the Suzhou-based firm had signed contracts for USD3 billion of orders as of the end of June.

Global PV demand remains stable, with sustained growth momentum, Li said. Demand in the Chinese market is returning to normal in the second half, with policies such as PV-centered desertification control, green electricity connections, and green power consumption requirements for industries like data centers expected to strongly support medium-term demand.

Meanwhile, emerging overseas markets in regions such as the Middle East, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific continue to grow rapidly, Li noted.

“Global PV demand is expected to grow steadily,” according to Zhuang. Since July, prices have risen slightly and will gradually be reflected in panels.

Twenty of the 30 Chinese solar companies that released first-half earnings reports saw their revenue decline, and half of them reported losses. CSI Solar's net profit shrank 41 percent to CNY731 million (USD100 million) from a year earlier, while Jinko Solar logged a net loss of CNY2.9 billion (USD400 million).

Editor: Futura Costaglione