In the second half of 2020, photovoltaic glass’ price soared that the limited expansion capacity couldn’t cope with the explosive demand under the high prosperity. Under the joint appeal of a number of photovoltaic module companies, in December 2020, the China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a document clarifying that the photovoltaic rolled glass project may not formulate a capacity replacement plan. Affected by the new policy, the expansion of photovoltaic glass production started to take off. According to public information, the production capacity of photovoltaic rolled glass with a clear production plan in 21/22 will reach 22250/26590t/d, with an annual growth rate of 68.4/48.6%. In the case of policies and demand-side guarantees, photovoltaic sand is expected to embrace its booming growth.

The capacity of photovoltaic glass in 2015-2022：

Photovoltaic glass is generally used as the encapsulation panel of photovoltaic modules and is in direct contact with the external environment. Its weather resistance, strength, light transmittance and other indicators play a central role in the life of photovoltaic modules and in the efficiency of long-term power generation. Iron ions in quartz sand are easy to dye other parts, and in order to ensure the high solar transmittance of the original glass, the iron content of photovoltaic glass shall be much lower than that of ordinary glass.

Since, low-iron ultra-white quartz sand as the important material for manufacturing photovoltaic glass (Low-iron quartz sand accounting for about 25% of the raw material cost), ushered explosively together.

It predicts that low-iron quartz sand will have a long-term growth of >15% for more than 10 years. Under the strong wind of photovoltaic, the production of low iron quartz sand has attracted much attention.

In the past, it was around 200 RMB/ton for a long time, based on the case of photovoltaic glass, the price of low-iron ultra-white quartz sand has also been on the rise in recent years. After the outbreak of the Q1 epidemic in 2020 years, it has dropped from a high level, and now remained stable at 260-280 RMB/ton.

In 2020, China overall demand for quartz sand is 90.93 million tons, the output is 87.65 million tons, and the net import is 3.278 million tons. In 2021, China's quartz sand imports mainly came from Indonesia, Australia, and Malaysia, accounting for 38.49%, 37.60%, and 20.30% of the total domestic imports respectively. Together account for 96.39% of the total domestic quartz sand imports.

According to public information, the amount of quartz stone in 100kg of molten glass is about 72.2kg. Based on the current expansion plan, the production capacity of photovoltaic glass in 2022 may increase to 24500 t/d. Assuming that the annual production Calculated over a 360-day period, all production corresponds to the new demand for low-iron silica sand of 6.35 million tons/year, that is, the new low-iron silica sand demand brought by photovoltaic glass in 2022 alone will account for the overall quartz sand in 2020. 7.0% of the demand. The pressure on the supply and demand of low-iron silica sand caused by the large-scale production of photovoltaic glass may be much higher than the pressure on the overall quartz sand industry.