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Under the impact of the end of demand for stocking following the US Section 201 case, prices for certain products in markets such as Southeast Asia and Taiwan have started to return to normal. At the same time, activity in China’s distributed solar market is picking up. Under these developments, the overall demand on the market has become flat, making prices on the supply chain dependent on market conditions. This week, the most noticeable price changes are still in the PV cell section. Only part of the price deals for polysilicon are significant.
Polysilicon
This week, there is a slight increase in polysilicon price, and the main reason is the high price for small orders. Current price in high level is RMB 150-155/kg, though the mainstream is RMB 145-150/kg. Due to the current high price of polysilicon, the manufacturers aren’t eager to raise the price. In addition, with the uncertainty of demand on the end market, polysilicon manufacturers may follow the market trend to decide the prices.
Si-wafer
Si-wafer price remains stable this week, and there are delays of orders for some manufacturers. However, because of the uncertainty of demand in China, prices can only remain steady. Mono-si wafer price is slightly unstable. The prices of orders for large manufacturers who mainly rely on contracts aren’t under much pressure. However, middle and small manufacturers who focus on temporary demand are starting to lower prices in order to match the market condition.
PV cell
The biggest change this week is in the PV cell section. Due to the window period of the Section 201 case, the demand for stocking on the US market has decreased. Compared with Chinese manufacturers, the advantages of Taiwanese manufacturers is diminishing. This situation has caused their PV cell prices to approach the levels of their Chinese counterparts. This week, Taiwanese PV cell price is USD 0.23/W. Owing to their high reliance on China, it’s only a matter of time before the prices on both sides reach parity.
PERC PV cell price is continuing to approach the levels of Europe’s MIP. Mono-si PV-cell MIP, which is regulated by the European Union, is USD 0.28/W. Meanwhile, because the demand in the US has largely declined, high efficiency products are imported into Europe, making the competition become severe for suppliers and PERC PV cell price go down rapidly. It is expected to decrease to at least USD 0.285-0.295/W.
Module
This week, module price has slightly declined in response to the decreasing price trend of non-Chinese manufacturers. Similar to PV cell condition, under the impact of external factors such as the decreasing demand triggered by the US’s Section 201 case and the lowering MIP, suppliers from regions other than China have started to use cheap prices to maintain competitiveness; the main drop in price comes from the capacity of the third party countries that had previously raised their price in order to supply to the US since May, 2017.
