Photovoltaic, which is known as the “new three” of China’s foreign trade exports with electric vehicles and lithium batteries, has become a “ride clean dust” -like existence in the global market.

PXIe-5172 China has a complete PV industry chain, and the newly installed PV capacity has ranked first in the world for 10 consecutive years. In 2022, the total output value of China’s photovoltaic industry exceeded 1.4 trillion yuan, an increase of more than 95%. Although the market is generally immersed in an optimistic atmosphere, it is followed by a wave of price cuts caused by overcapacity, which directly leads to the “internal volume” of enterprises. When the new round of industrial cycle comes, how should enterprises respond?

Beijing Jingyun Technology Co., LTD. (Jingyun) has been deeply engaged in the photovoltaic industry for nearly 20 years, and the cooperation with Siemens has a long history, and the two sides have witnessed the whole process of the brilliant development of China’s photovoltaic. Jingyun was awarded the national “Little Giant” in 2021, and its revenue exceeded 12.1 billion yuan with triple digit growth in 2022. For how to cross the industrial cycle and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, Beijing Yuntong has already had the answer……

01 It’s a marathon

PXIe-5172 Polysilicon is called “the gem given to mankind”. Silicon wafer processed from solar grade polysilicon is the core material of photovoltaic cell. In the silicon wafer production process, whether it is crystal silicon growth equipment or silicon wafer material manufacturing, there are high technical barriers. Founded in 2002, JingYuntong has been deeply engaged in this field for many years, taking the research and development of crystalline silicon growth equipment as the starting point, and gradually growing into a comprehensive group enterprise centered on the four major industries of photovoltaic high-end equipment manufacturing, photovoltaic silicon material manufacturing, new energy power generation and energy saving and environmental protection.

PXIe-5172 Feng Zhenkun, deputy general manager of Beijing Express, said that photovoltaic is a typical cycle growth industry. In the view of Beijing Express, the key to successfully crossing the cycle is to focus on technology and adhere to innovation. Enterprises should dare and be good at reshaping the logic of operation and growth with technological innovation. This process is like a long marathon, if you want to run farther and shorter, you need to find a running partner who can keep you focused and break through the plateau. For Beijing Express, Siemens is one such partner.

The cooperation between Jing Express and Siemens began at the beginning of its establishment. In recent years, with the acceleration of industrial development, the cooperation between the two sides has also opened a new chapter of intelligent manufacturing. In March 2023, Jingyun became one of Siemens’ strategic partners in the field of photovoltaic equipment research and development and manufacturing, and the two sides will contribute to the high-quality development of the new energy photovoltaic industry.

PXIe-5172 02 “Three core drive” to promote sustained growth

At present, Jingyun has four manufacturing bases, located in Beijing, Wuhai, Inner Mongolia, Wuxi, Jiangsu and Leshan, Sichuan, with a silicon rod and wafer production capacity of up to 40 gigawatts (GW). In the process of Jingyun’s industrial chain layout, automation, digitalization and intelligent solutions from Siemens have exerted the same force, gradually forming a “three-core drive” development model.

PXIe-5172 From the high-end equipment Fully Integrated Automation (TIA) product portfolio to big data solutions, Siemens Technology continues to land in Beijing Yuntong. At the same time, Siemens also actively provides relevant technical support and application training for Jingyun, and continuously enables its business development.

We are very honored to witness and participate in China’s photovoltaic industry from scratch, from there to strong. Our cooperation can be said to start with automation, deeper than digitization and intelligence. Through collaborative innovation, we have worked together to create cutting-edge applications for TIA solutions in the PV field. In the future, we will also strengthen cooperation in digital consulting and carbon neutrality, support Jingyun to take the road of scientific and technological innovation, and jointly promote the new energy photovoltaic industry to a new level.

03 New breakthrough of classic scheme

PXIe-5172 The single crystal furnace is nicknamed “refining furnace” by the industry, which compares the difficulty of the processing of polysilicon raw materials. The purity of semiconductor grade monocrystalline silicon is extremely high, usually need to reach more than 99.9999999% purity, for this reason, the single crystal furnace must provide enough temperature and pressure to promote the process of crystal growth to reduce the number of impurities and defects. Taking the new automatic flexible shaft single crystal furnace of Beijing Yuntong as an example, the molten material in the furnace can weigh thousands of kilograms, and the temperature can exceed 1500℃. It is not easy to achieve crystal silicon growth in such a closed, low-pressure, high-temperature furnace body, temperature, pressure, pulling speed… A detail problem can lead to the failure of single crystal growth, the larger the crystal size, the more difficult its growth control.

Based on crystal silicon growth conditions and process technology, Siemens customized TIA solutions for Beijing Express with SIMATIC enhanced controller, distributed I/O system, SINAMICS servo drive system and other hardware as the core. The scheme can complete the automatic control of single crystal furnace from closing to closing with high precision, stability, reliability and flexibility. It is worth mentioning that this is also the first practical application of Siemens TIA in the field of single crystal furnaces, and has continued to play an important role in the development process of Jingyuntong single crystal furnaces since 2019.

In 2023, with the expansion of the industrial layout of Beijing Yun, the application of Siemens TIA has been extended to the field of microtome, creating a solution integrated by SIMATIC 1500 T-CPU motion controller, SINAMICS servo drive and industrial computer touch screen. Under the power of TIA, Jingyuntong slicing machine can realize speed control, positioning control, synchronization control and tension control more reliably through the time-tested process software package, and realize the wafer cutting, so as to effectively save silicon material, improve the chip rate, and achieve the industry-leading cutting yield.