From Scramble Installation to Clearance: In 2025, Photovoltaic Companies Will Only Have Three Outcomes

I. The Ebb of Scramble Installation and the Rise of Clearance

The scramble installation is over, and the clearance has begun.

Opening a company's cash flow statement reveals the truest picture of the industry:

In Q1 2025, the net cash flow from operating activities in the photovoltaic industry was only 4.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of nearly 80%.

Image source: Changjiang Securities

It's not the small and medium-sized enterprises that are suffering, but the six major leading companies that have collectively fallen into the deep pit of cash flow deficit.

JinkoSolar is losing cash after losing profits, Longi Green Energy has a net outflow of 1.5 billion, and Tongwei has seen nearly 1.1 billion yuan in cash evaporate.

Burning through two years' worth of financing in one quarter, even the companies that are best at storytelling can only shut up and submit their reports this time.

The most ironic thing is that this is the industry's "best" report card this year: scramble installation shipments, price stabilization, and policy dividends in hand, yet they still can't collect money even at this time.

Everyone in the world is bustling about for profit. Now, the hustle and bustle of photovoltaics should also disperse.

II. Large Enterprises Relying on Financing to Survive: How Much Longer Can They Hold On?

Financing is an art. It's also an endurance contest.

Once upon a time, leading companies talked about the great trend of carbon neutrality and the global leadership they possessed. Capital loved to hear it, the market loved to believe it, and banks lined up to offer money.

But now, the table is still there, but the chips are starting to thin out.

JA Solar's net cash flow from operating activities in Q1 was 1.57 billion yuan, which is the only one that is still relatively decent;

But Longi Green Energy had a net outflow of 2.12 billion yuan, Tongwei had an outflow of 1.04 billion yuan, Trina Solar 1.89 billion, and Xinyi Solar 0.58 billion...

Enterprise	Net Cash Flow from Operating Activities in 2025Q1 (100 million yuan)	Year-on-Year Change
JA Solar	+15.7	-11.6
Tongwei	-10.4	-45.7
Longi Green Energy	-21.2	-39.0
Trina Solar	-18.9	-30.1
Xinyi Solar	-5.8	-26.4

You are familiar with these names:
One is the number one in market share, one is the market value king, one is the "Kweichow Moutai of photovoltaics," and one is a financing champion. The outflow in the first quarter is not a small amount; it is a real evaporation of money.

According to Changjiang Securities, the overall asset-liability ratio of the photovoltaic industry in 2025Q1 has risen to 72.4%, a historical high.

Image source: Changjiang Securities

The higher the debt, the tighter the cash, and the heavier the interest expense.

 

Looking at the details is even more heartbreaking:

• • Tongwei's short-term loans in 2025Q1 reached 12.6 billion yuan, with cash and cash equivalents of 15.7 billion yuan, and some bonds are starting to show insufficient subscriptions;
• • Longi's accounts receivable is as high as 23.8 billion yuan, and inventory is 35.1 billion;
• • Trina Solar's work in progress is 7.8 billion yuan;
• • Xinyi Solar's headquarters cash flow has bottomed out. In 2025Q1, the net profit was positive, but the operating cash flow was negative.

 

Projects are still being recruited, factories are still under construction, customer orders cannot be interrupted, and overseas channels cannot collapse. From the financial reports, they are not living easily at all:

They are like a high-speed train; even if the engine is smoking, the wheels cannot stop.

III. Medium-Sized Enterprises Selling Projects: Those Who Can Cut Their Losses Will Live Longer

If leading companies are relying on financing to survive, then medium-sized companies are relying on exchanging their lives—

Selling power plants, equity, factories, and brands.

Anything that can be exchanged for cash is used to exchange, even if it means giving up control, in exchange for the right to survive.

Over the past year, project transfer announcements have become shorter and shorter, transfer amounts have become lower and lower, and the acquirers have become more and more familiar.

There are only a few ways to write it:

• • "Strategic restructuring, optimizing production capacity structure";
• • "Introducing local state-owned assets, deepening cooperation mechanisms";
• • "Promoting industrial development and achieving win-win results for government and enterprises".

Translation: We don't want to hold on anymore, and we can't hold on anymore. Now that someone is taking over, we'll take it one step at a time.

For example, Runyang, once a star enterprise among the top three in battery shipments, planned to sell its controlling stake to Tongwei for 5 billion yuan in the second half of 2024.

After three months of talks, it ultimately failed.

In the end, the acquirer was Yancheng State-owned Assets.

With 1 billion yuan in real money invested, the industry exclaimed: "This move saved the local area and also saved the brand."

There is also Xiamen Construction Development, which has successively taken over the battery component businesses of Suntech and Zhonghui, Qingdao State-owned Assets acquiring Colin Electric, and Nanjing State-owned Assets entering Zhengye Technology...

These actions are not simply corporate mergers and acquisitions, but a quietly ongoing resource restructuring in this production capacity cycle.

We cannot say that state-owned assets are "fools," because what they have always valued is not just profit, but also urban infrastructure, local employment, and the integrity of the industrial chain.

But it can't be pretended that this is an easy deal.

After all, today's industrial synergy may not be able to withstand tomorrow's production interruption;

Today's manufacturing landing may not be able to survive the next round of technological reshuffle.

More importantly—this is not one or two companies selling, but a whole batch of companies looking for "exit channels".

• • Zhongke Sunshine Battery Factory sold its controlling stake;
• • Colin gave up its shareholder seat;
• • Maidi Technology, Xinhao New Energy, Zhengye Technology... restructuring announcements have been issued again and again, each time more decisively.

Would you say they are selling themselves? Not entirely.

They are more like:

Seeing the situation clearly, they voluntarily give up their seats, but retain an entry ticket.

This is not surrender, this is a step back.

It's not that no one wants to hold on to the end, but they understand: in this game, being able to actively downsize is already a win.

📊 Overview of Cases of State-owned Assets Acquisition of Photovoltaic Enterprises

Serial Number	Acquired Enterprise	Acquirer	Acquisition Method	Time/Progress
1	Runyang Shares	Yancheng State-owned Assets Platform	Controlling stake transfer	Negotiations in Q4 2024, confirmation in Q1 2025
2	SunPower	Xiamen Jianfa	Project acquisition	Completed in early 2024
3	Zhongli Group	Xiamen Jianfa	Battery component business packaged as a whole	Completed in mid-2024
4	Colin Electric	Qingdao State-owned Assets	Equity transfer	Public transfer in early 2025
5	Zhengye Technology	Nanjing Municipal State-owned Assets Platform	Investment and promotion of industrial cooperation	In progress in Q1 2025
6	Maidi Technology (Xinhao New Energy)	Mianyang State-owned Assets Platform	Full acquisition + restructuring and integration	Has entered the actual controlling stage since 2023

III. Quietly exiting small enterprises: No wailing, only disconnection

The exit from the photovoltaic industry is not always accompanied by explosions and noise.
More often, it's a "court accepts bankruptcy" notice, a vacation notice, or a list of enforced actions.

From 2024 to 2025, this kind of exit has become more frequent and quieter.

They didn't issue announcements, hold shareholder meetings, or make loss-cutting summaries. One day, the website was suddenly inaccessible, the factory doors were locked, and the employee WeChat groups were dissolved.

In the first hundred days of 2025, several cases have already appeared:

• • On January 3, a subsidiary of Zhongcan Intelligent Technology applied for the bankruptcy of Yangli Energy Photovoltaic;
• • On May 19, China General Nuclear Power Solar Energy jointly applied for the bankruptcy of Muller Sitong Photovoltaic, a small enterprise with a registered capital of only 1 million yuan, but one of its shareholders is a "state-owned enterprise";
• • Jiangsu Lianyungang Taiwa New Energy has been on vacation for all employees since May 13, with salaries paid at the minimum standard, and the resumption time is "pending";
• • Ruisheng Photovoltaic, a subsidiary of Mingyang Group, has extended the vacation time of its Yancheng base to June 30, with a cumulative shutdown of more than half a year;
• • Shunfeng Photovoltaic, the old component manufacturer you once knew, is being auctioned off on Alibaba's online auction platform, with a starting price of 128 million yuan.

They didn't fail suddenly, they gradually fell silent.

From tight capital chains to project suspensions, from employee loss to court intervention, every step is not earth-shattering, but all lead to the same end: exit, without a ripple.

They once actively participated in bidding projects across the country, were "screws" in photovoltaic projects, and were among the earliest to install and the most dedicated to construction progress in those remote industrial parks.

But in 2025, they left behind no transformation plans or clearance plans—

They didn't even have the chance to be bid farewell by the industry.

If you check their names, Tianyancha shows: "restricted from high consumption", "dishonest executor", "legal representative out of contact".

This is the most realistic sound of bubble bursting in the industrial tide.

No explosion, no surprise, just silence, like spring hasn't come yet, and the forsythia at the door has already withered.

These small enterprises wanted to survive, but there was really no way out:

• • Unable to obtain financing;
• • Unable to secure projects;
• • Unable to recover overdue payments;
• • Low-price competition to the extreme, with break-even far off;
• • Even "selling themselves", no one is willing to take over.

The industry doesn't need them anymore, the capital market can't see them, and the policies can't protect them.

They are like the "dregs" left behind after being squeezed through the industry chain's juicer, silently swallowed up.

What about their outcome, you ask?

There is no outcome.

5. Are these three outcomes truly solutions?

The excitement in the photovoltaic industry stemmed from the pursuit of "profit";

But now it seems that it is also the cause of its downfall.

In the 2025 reshuffle, we see three different interpretations of profit:

• • Some carry leverage forward, the longer they go, the heavier their debt becomes;
• • Some sell themselves to save themselves, repeatedly adjusting their posture, but still failing to secure a path to survival;
• • Some quietly exit, like the lights of a night voyage, extinguished and forgotten.

We repeatedly ask: Who lost?

But a deeper question is: Did we misunderstand the rules of this game from the beginning?

No one in the industry is not pursuing "profit",

But the trend of these years proves that not all "profits" can be realized, and not all investments can yield returns.

We overestimated our certainty and underestimated the backlash of the cycle;

We believe in synergy, yet we calculate against each other;

We pursue scale, but forget that cash is more important than valuation.

In the end, everyone is waiting for a turning point,

Only to find that what they waited for was not dawn, but the surrender of others.

If we were led by the pursuit of profit in the past two years,
Then now, it's time to look at the other side of this word.

The wise see profit and consider the difficulties, while the foolish see profit and forget the dangers.

• • Who forgot to assess the situation when they saw profit?
• • And who, even after falling into trouble, still presses on?
• • How many companies are on this road, neither seeing the direction clearly nor stepping on the brakes?

Profit, besides profit, is also about advantage and disadvantage. When profit turns into disadvantage, choosing the lesser of two evils is also a way to gain advantage.

This article does not mourn for anyone, nor does it speak for anyone.

It merely records some truthful observations, leaving it to time to judge:

Who will survive, and who is destined not to reach the end?