A timely retreat: the 15GW PV integrated project is aborted

According to Binhai Energy’s announcement, the company’s board of directors has reviewed and approved the “Proposal on Terminating the Investment and Construction of the Ingot pulling and PV Solar Cell Project.”

This ambitious but shelved plan, unveiled in 2024, envisioned an integrated 10GW ingot pulling and 5GW cell production facility in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. However, despite completing some environmental, energy, and land preparations following approval, construction never commenced. When the PV industry chain prices collapsed in 2025, the company recorded significant asset impairment provisions that year.

“Due to changes in the overall PV industry, new investments in the industrial chain face substantial uncertainty,” Binhai Energy stated, reflecting the company’s pessimistic outlook on the current market. With PV module prices dropping below production costs and the entire industry mired in losses, proceeding with new capacity expansion would be tantamount to “pulling chestnuts out of the fire.”

The announcement indicates that Binhai Energy recently signed a revised investment framework agreement with the government of Tumd Right Banner, Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Under the revision, the originally planned crystalline silicon PV project will be transformed into an integrated project producing industrial silicon, silane gas, porous carbon, and silicon-carbon anode materials. This includes a 2,000-ton/year silicon-carbon anode material project currently under construction. Additionally, a self-developed 1,000-ton/year porous carbon project is underway in Xingtai.

In contrast to the severely overcapacity PV manufacturing sector, silicon-carbon anodes—a new generation of lithium battery materials—can significantly boost energy density. They are on the verge of a demand surge, with gross margins far exceeding those of traditional PV modules.

The transformation of Binhai Energy reflects the dramatic upheaval now reshaping the PV industry landscape. The company’s core business is lithium battery anode materials. It ventured into the PV industry in 2023 by announcing PV cell project investments, which ultimately ended in termination. Looking back over the past few years, a large number of non-PV companies (such as those in real estate, textiles, and traditional energy) flocked to the PV sector in the hope of “overtaking competitors by taking a different path.”

However, as the industry has been undergoing a brutal consolidation phase since 2025, new entrants face the dilemma of ‘operating at a loss the moment they begin production.’ According to statistics from the China PV Industry Association, since 2026, dozens of cross-sector PV entrants have announced project terminations or asset sales.

An industry insider noted: “The PV industry has gone from a ‘gold rush’ to a ‘red ocean battlefield’. For new entrants lacking cost advantages and core technologies, blind capacity expansion poses the greatest risk. Binhai Energy’s decision to cut losses redirects limited resources from low-efficiency areas to high-efficiency ones, which is in line with the market economy’s law of the survival of the fittest.”