2026 PV Industry Policy: Resolutely Curb Cut-Throat Competition, Will New Installed Capacity Be Slowed Down?

On Feb 5, the key PV industry symposium – 2025 Development Review & 2026 Outlook – took place in Beijing. A clear message was sent: the sector will prioritize curbing cut-throat competition in 2026, with the growth rate of domestic installed capacity set to pull back.

Signal  1

Curbing cut-throat competition will be the top priority for the photovoltaic industry in 2026

Wang Shijiang, Deputy Director of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated at the meeting that curbing cut-throat competition in the photovoltaic industry is the top priority of this year's work. The industry is currently in a new round of in-depth adjustment, with the deep-seated supply-demand mismatch yet to be resolved, and enterprises still facing considerable challenges in their operations.

On how to curb cut-throat competition, he outlined four key directions:

1. Implement the entrepreneur forum’s guiding principles. All departments coordinate with market-based/law-based measures to promote sound competition; associations strengthen self-regulation.

2. Accelerate mandatory national standards (quality, labeling, energy consumption). Crack down on false power labeling; enhance inspections to foster quality-based fair competition.

3. Boost innovation-driven development. Support industry-university-research collaboration; advance perovskite tandem cells to build next-gen tech advantages.

4. Deepen international cooperation. Support orderly overseas layout, strengthen IP protection and risk response, and foster a fair global market environment.

Signal  2

180-240GW!PV Installed Capacity to Slow Down in 2026

At the conference, Wang Bohua, Advisor to the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), stated that China's domestic PV installed capacity will see a pullback in 2026. The new domestic PV installed capacity is projected to reach 180-240GW in 2026, maintaining growth and expected to resume an upward trajectory after a short-term adjustment. Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, taking into account factors including growing pains of China's high-quality transformation, the rising electrification level of terminal energy consumption, greening of incremental social energy consumption as the core driver, green and low-carbon transformation of stock social energy consumption, the exploration of ecological and environmental application value in the PV desert control scenario, and incremental demand brought by other emerging PV applications, Wang Bohua predicted that China's average annual new PV installed capacity will stand at 238-287GW during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Focusing on industrial development, Wang Bohua stated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China's photovoltaic industry will shift from "competing on prices and vying for value"to "value-based competition". In his view, driving the industry's transition from scale competition to value-based competition requires both a package of policy measures and enterprises to develop a second growth curve. For policies, he suggested that the policy package should curb vicious competition through multi-dimensional approaches and build a technological moat and a sound development environment with high-quality intellectual property protection. For enterprises, he advised building their own technological moats to boost the coordinated development of the industrial ecosystem.

In short, embracing value competition requires both policy guidance and the proactive efforts of enterprises. Currently, although enterprises are facing the problem of internal competition, they are also actively seeking solutions and sending out many positive signals. For instance, companies like Longi Green Energy (18.360, 0.13, 0.71%) and AXcell (13.670, 0.00, 0.00%) have initiated a wave of BC (back contact) technological innovation. At present, the high-efficiency BC products of these two companies have broken through from distributed application scenarios to centralized ones. Another example is the TCL Solar T5 Pro multi-slice high-density module launched by TCL Zhonghuan (10.620, -0.12, -1.12%), which has broken the homogenized competition pattern through technological innovation and provided a practical sample for the industry to "reverse internal competition" by optimizing the value throughout the life cycle. Another example is the Trina N-type TOPCon module launched by Trina Solar (20.740, 0.28, 1.37%), which not only demonstrates an outstanding "bifacial rate" and "low-light response performance", but also systematically promotes the silver-replacement metallization solutions represented by silver-copper and copper paste, building a closed-loop technology system from materials, processes to reliability.

Focusing on the overseas development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Wang Bohua pointed out that with the official cancellation of export rebate subsidies, the photovoltaic industry will enter a new stage driven by the market. In the short term, the cancellation of export rebates will significantly increase the export costs of enterprises and squeeze their profit margins. However, in the medium and long term, it will help accelerate the elimination of excess capacity and promote the industry's shift from "low-price competition" to "high-quality" competition. He called on photovoltaic enterprises to pay more attention to the strategic and flexible nature of their overseas layout, closely integrate with the country's diplomatic strategy, adopt more flexible and diverse overseas expansion models, and diversify their operation methods.