At SNEC 2025 – the world’s largest solar trade show held in Shanghai, China – TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela conducted an exclusive interview with JinkoSolar’s Global Vice President Dany Qian, as part of the TaiyangNews SNEC Solar Leadership Conversations 2025.
As one of the world’s top solar PV manufacturers and a consistent leader in global module shipments, JinkoSolar offers a unique perspective on industry trends. In the conversation, Qian shared valuable insights into the current state of the solar market and outlined the company’s strategic roadmap for the future.
Welcome to the TaiyangNews Solar Leadership Conversations 2025 out of Shanghai from SNEC 2025. My name is Michael Schmela and I'm the Managing Director of TaiyangNews. I'm very happy to have with me — it's almost a must-have and a pleasure also — Dany Qian, the Global VP of Jinko, one of the largest solar manufacturers in the world.
TaiyangNews: Last year was a challenging year for solar, and things haven’t changed too much this year as well as there are still record low prices. Everyone had hoped that it cannot go further down, but it did. What's your message to the world when you look at all this, let’s say, mess that we're seeing in the solar industry right now?
Dany Qian: I think that the low-cost pricing doesn't make sense. Even though it's the result of overly intense competition, in the long run, it's not sustainable. I think that 2025 will be a turning point. In the future, not all modules will be charged at the same price level. High-performance, high-end, high-power, high-efficiency modules will deserve a premium price. The benchmark or turning point will be like 640W or 650W. Above this power class, modules will be categorized as high-end and justify a 5% to 10% premium pricing, according to our LCOE simulation. This is in terms of the product.
In terms of the globalization of the current tariff turbulence, every company, especially tier-one companies, should think of their next strategy. In addition to technology and scale-up, Chinese companies should seriously consider how to scale up.
TaiyangNews: Everyone knows what's at stake. No one has money to burn anymore. IPOs are long gone, and it’s now about survival — even for bigger companies. Why are companies still pricing desperately low? And what about the tier-II and tier-III firms?
Dany Qian: In the first half of the year, if you read Chinese media, you’ll see some tier-2 or tier-3 companies have been merged or acquired. For Tier-I companies, they are either shutting down or phasing out low-efficiency capacity. One indicator is the layoff of workers which shows that the low efficiency capacity has been phased out.
TaiyangNews: Is this a normalization process or do we still need an external trigger to exit this low-price environment behind?
Dany Qian: It's progressing, but not as fast as expected, especially over the last six months due to policy-driven rush to install. Some capacity that was planned to shut down was instead released to meet demand. I think we're on the way towards our target, but the pace is slow.
TaiyangNews: Could changes in China’s market and incentive schemes help here? There was a rush before feed-in tariff changes. Now, in the 2nd half with global markets also facing issues, are we seeing problems piling up and nudging consolidation?
Dany Qian: The world's smartest people do policymaking and technology — both are hard. I think Chinese policy should shift from demand encouragement to supply control. But in the past six months, the policy was still pushing demand. In H2, it will likely shift toward managing supply.
TaiyangNews: Do you think that demand will be slower during H2 2025 because many projects were pulled forward, and with the policy changes, it will not be attractive anymore in China?
Dany Qian: The initial half of the year was focused on the DG market. So we can expect that Q3 will be slightly down, compared to the previous 6 months. But Q4 will peak again because of registered utility projects.
TaiyangNews: More and more countries are localizing due to energy security issues and the desire to become energy self-sufficient. Trade barriers, local content rules are all the more common now. With all these changes, how are you changing your sales strategies?
Dany Qian: Running a global company in today’s uncertain and turbulent times means being agile. You need to move faster. First, monitor tariffs closely. Second, build a broad supply chain and manufacturing base. Third, shift from global sales to global manufacturing and investment. Shift from wholly owned models to joint ventures. Shift from exporting products to exporting soft skills like technology, experience, and talent. This builds local resilience. That’s our strategy. So I believe local manufacturing is the trend.
TaiyangNews: Let’s move to technology. Jinko has been a pioneer in TOPCon. Now it’s the standard. How do you differentiate from the others?
Dany Qian: The numbers say it all. We've delivered 180 GW of TOPCon, equal to all our previous generations combined. Our backlog is over 250 GW. That shows Topcon works well in real-world conditions. Customers recognize it. Today we launched our 3rd generation Tiger Neo modules with 650-670 W output, and maximum module efficiency reaching 24.8% efficiency. We expect this capacity will ramp to 40–50 GW by year-end. We’re accelerating transition to high-end, high-performance modules above 640-650 W.
The market is huge. No one company has all the solutions, all the technologies. I am quite confident that TOPCon will still be the mainstream, but it won’t be today’s TOPCon but the 3rd generation with a cell efficiency of 27%, or even 4th generation with 28% efficiency, very close to the physical limit. According to PV InfoLink, by 2028, TOPCon will still dominate 70% of the market, but with new versions where front-side performance will be at par with that of the back contact (BC), and 10–15% more bifaciality will be key.
TaiyangNews: And TOPCon could morph into back-contact products?
Dany Qian: Yes. TOPCon can evolve into back-contact cells. For us, the main task is increasing front-side efficiency and power. For BC, it’s cost reduction.
TaiyangNews: Many now talk about tandem technology and commercial readiness. What’s Jinko’s latest in this department?
Dany Qian: Perovskite tandem cell is the most feasible and most affordable solution to achieve 30%+ efficiency. It can be integrated with any technology. We’re integrating perovskite with TOPCon. We chose this path 8 years ago because TOPCon is extensible and commercializable technology. TOPCon with perovskite tandem cell can help realize commercialization sooner and at lower cost. We focus on 3 main things for this—materials, processes, and scalable cell design to address challenges of degradation, interconnection layers, etc. Our current Perovskite TOPCon Tandem cell record is 34.22%. By year-end, we aim for 34.5%, certified by third parties.
TaiyangNews: Before we end, let’s touch briefly on batteries — still a margin opportunity. What’s your progress there?
Dany Qian: In 2025, our battery deliveries are 6x last year. Next year we’ll double again. We have R&D across the stack — cells, EMS, BMS — and manufacturing capabilities.
TaiyangNews: What’s your production capacity plan for batteries?
Dany Qian: At the Q1 of 2025, we had 12 GWh product capacity for the system.
TaiyangNews: So, when we meet next year, what will be different for Jinko?
Dany Qian: At least 50% of next year’s capacity will be 3rd gen TOPCon above 650/660 W. That allows us a 10% premium.
TaiyangNews: And the global market?
Dany Qian: I’m not optimistic. I am very, very conservative. Too many variables. The bottom line is: keeping flat this year.
TaiyangNews is hosting its annual PV System Technology Trends virtual conference to explore the latest solar product innovations introduced at the world’s leading solar trade shows, SNEC and Intersolar. Day 1 of the event was held on June 24, 2025. Registrations for the 2nd day, on June 26, 2025, are free and can be done here.