an industry fear most? It is never the change of the external environment and the fierce competition, but all the participants are struggling in the ineffective consumption, but few of them are really moving forward in the direction of high-quality development.
At present, China's photovoltaic industry is standing at such a key fork in the road to decide the future.
Recently, the Party Central Committee has released a clearer signal on economic work. The Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2025 listed "in-depth rectification of 'involution' competition" as the key task of economic work in 2026; the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held on April 28 this year further emphasized "in-depth promotion of the construction of a unified national market and in-depth rectification of 'involution' competition". From the Central Economic Work Conference to the "ministerial passage" of the two sessions in 2026, and then to the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, the continuous strengthening of the policy spirit shows a fundamental judgment: low-price struggle, ineffective internal friction, low-quality homogeneous competition, should no longer be regarded as "the normal market competition". As a pioneer in the field of new energy and a national strategic emerging industry, the
photovoltaic industry is not only the core participant in this profound change, but also the most typical observation sample. To clarify how the photovoltaic industry breaks down, we can clearly see the real path of China's economy from "rolling price" to "competing value".
Face up to the problem: Deeply understand the crux and external threats
of "involution" competition. The achievements of China's photovoltaic industry have attracted worldwide attention, and the output of modules has accounted for more than 80% of the world's total for many years, which is the pride of all photovoltaic people. However, we must also clearly realize that the other side of "large quantity" is the dilemma of "low price" and the unsustainable development model.
Rome was not built in a day, but it was destroyed overnight. Everyone knows that the problems in the photovoltaic industry did not appear "yesterday". The deep losses and low bidding prices in successive years are rooted in the periodic overcapacity. In recent years, a large number of projects have been launched rapidly under the promotion of local policies, and production capacity has accumulated rapidly. At the same time, restricted by periodic factors such as power grid absorption, the growth rate of new installed capacity in China has been adjusted back after reaching its peak, and the structural contradiction between supply and demand has not been fundamentally resolved. Some enterprises have fallen into a vicious circle of "price reduction-loss-price reduction-inability to invest in R & D".
More importantly, we should be alert to the changes in the external environment. In recent years, the international situation and policies are complex and changeable. The United States has introduced the Inflation Reduction Act and its rules, Europe has introduced the Net Zero Industry Act, and India has implemented the production-linked incentive plan, all of which have used tariff barriers and industrial protection policies to support local photovoltaic manufacturing. If China continues to sink into the "involution", dumping at low prices and overdrawing profits, it will not only consume its own technological innovation capabilities, but also allow foreign giants to overtake in bends and seize the next generation of technological highlands by means of financial subsidies and policy protection. China's photovoltaic industry has spent a lot of effort to build a global leading position, which must not be handed over because of internal consumption.
The industry must realize that "there is no winner in the low price struggle in the quagmire". The new round of supply-side structural reform with "anti-involution" as the core is not an expedient measure, but an inevitable choice for China's photovoltaic industry and even the whole manufacturing industry to realize the fundamental transformation of its development model.
On April 28, the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly put forward the idea of "thoroughly rectifying the involution competition", which is in line with the upgrading of the relevant expression in this year's Report on the Work of the Government from last year's "comprehe nsive rectification" to "in-depth rectification". The change of the word highlights the deepening of governance determination and the promotion of action requirements.
In 2026, the core task of the industry is to realize the fundamental transformation from "price competition" to "value competition". To rectify the involution is not to cancel competition, but to guide competition back to the source of value creation such as technology, quality, service and brand. Photovoltaic enterprises can be compared, but can not only compare whose price is lower; can compete, but can not compete for jerry-building, lower standards.
To this end, the industry authorities have made clear the specific grasp. At the working conference of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at the end of 2025, it was clearly stated that in 2026, we will focus on strengthening the regulation of production capacity, promoting the orderly withdrawal of backward production capacity by means of marketization and legalization, improving the price monitoring mechanism, and severely cracking down on price violations. On April 10 this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology emphasized once again at the National Conference on High-quality Development of Electronic Information Manufacturing Industry in 2026 that it was necessary to "resolutely eliminate the" involution "competition in the photovoltaic industry". This is no longer a call to stay at the level of recommendations, but a policy directive that must be resolutely implemented.
Cohesion: Accelerating the construction
of high-quality group standards in the photovoltaic industry to get out of the "involution" dilemma requires not only the guidance of policies and the consciousness of enterprises, but also a set of scientific, authoritative and unified standard system as the "yardstick" and "guardrail" for the healthy development of the industry. At present, what the industry lacks is the national group standards that can provide high-level guidance in technological innovation, product quality, low-carbon environmental protection, after-sales service and other aspects, which leads to the lack of value judgment criteria in the competition and the easy slide to a single price competition. Under the guidance of the competent national authorities,
the whole industry urgently needs to unite enterprises, associations, testing and certification agencies, scientific research institutes and other forces in the industry to study and promulgate a number of high-quality national group standards as soon as possible in view of the pain points and difficulties in the development of the industry. These standards should be forward-looking, leading and binding, focusing on the scientific classification of key technical indicators such as component efficiency, attenuation rate and reliability, defining the gap between "industry average" and "industry leading", and establishing carbon footprint accounting and disclosure standards from raw material acquisition, production and manufacturing to recycling. To formulate stricter and more scientific standards for power generation performance, system safety and fire protection performance of power plants to ensure the asset value of the whole industry chain. The release of
national group standards will provide an authoritative and impartial "value reference system" for the whole industry-it is not a rule that restricts development, but a "navigation map" for transformation and upgrading. Enterprises can clearly see what level they are at and which direction they should work towards; customers and financial institutions can identify high-quality products and projects, give better market returns, and let enterprises that really pay attention to technology and quality stand out.
In this process, government departments, industry associations and industrial chain enterprises will form a joint force: the government will strengthen guidance and acceptance, associations will play an organizational and self-regulatory role, and enterprises will actively participate in the compilation and commit to practice. In the future, we firmly believe that under the unified standard system, the "technology war, quality war, service war, brand war" will really start, and the new ecology of value competition in the industry will be effectively constructed.
Firm belief: to "change" break "endure", the photovoltaic industry will mature
back to the original question: What is an industry most afraid of? What I fear most is not the fierce competition, but that all participants are passively "suffering" in consumption, but no one dares to change and take the initiative to move forward.
From the quarterly data, the policy effect is initially showing-component prices have stabilized and rebounded in stages, and the loss of enterprises has narrowed. However, we need to be more aware that the fundamental problem of the phased imbalance between supply and demand has not yet been solved, and the industry still needs to redouble its efforts to get out of the trough completely. The profound transformation of the
photovoltaic industry at the moment is a vivid epitome of China's economic reform. In the future, we can no longer rely on everyone to carry and endure at a low level, but must rely on technological innovation, standard guidance and value creation to find a new way of high-quality and sustainable development. Behind this road is the systematic strategic deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council-from the construction of a unified national market, to the optimization of the industrial structure and layout in the 15th Five-Year Plan, to the in-depth promotion of the fair competition review system. The goal is to bring competition back to the healthy track of value creation.
From "price war" to "technology war, quality war, service war, brand war" -this is not an empty slogan, but the only way for the photovoltaic industry to cross the cycle and mature, and also a firm belief in the bright future of China's photovoltaic industry.
This road may not be noisy for a while, but it will be steady and far-reaching, and the scenery will be infinite.
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