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China’s June-30 deadline is around the corner, driving PV prices across the value chain to rise during this week. Si-wafer’s and PV cell’s prices rose, while polysilicon’s and PV module’s prices remained nearly the same with last week. Different supply-demand bottlenecks and strategies among different sectors caused this situation. Besides, RMB currency appreciated against US dollar so the US-dollar average quotes were slightly increased.
Polysilicon sector
Price of polysilicon remained almost the same with last week. Nonetheless, polysilicon makers will try to raise price as a test on next week’s market quotes since si-wafer sector, the direct downstream to polysilicon, has enjoyed peaked price and high order visibility.
Polysilicon sector has encountered oversupply and competition brought by newly released production capacity, hence the makers are reinforced to be conservative with price rise, in case of losing orders. If high order visibility in the downstream sectors continues, si-wafer makers could accept rose price to secure material sources and polysilicon’s price may be rose.
Si-wafer sector
Market demand and price trend of si-wafers continued being strong like in last week. In high efficiency wafer segment, especially, the order visibility has extended after China’s June 30 deadline through late-June to early-July. This situation encourages wafer makers as well as stimulates wafer quote’s upward trend.
This week, China-made ultra-high-efficiency multi-si wafer’s price has reached RMB 4.75~4.8 per piece. Taiwan-made ones’ price remained almost the same with last week due to no volume for sale. On the other hand, mono-si wafer’s price stuck at the same level with last week.
PV cell sector
Price fluctuation in the PV cell sector was stronger than in other sectors. Because of the upcoming installation deadline, PV cell makers’ quotes were chaotic. The quote has reached RMB 1.8 per watt, while the final price also rose to RMB 1.75~1.78 per watt.
Urgent module orders are more profitable, so cell purchasers who have secured urgent module orders are capable of accepting the hiking cell price. However, such a strong price trend can only last to mid-June. Both cell sector’s upstream and downstream sectors, wafers and modules, will enjoy short-term business advantages after June 30, therefore, they would put pressure on PV cell manufacturers.
PV module sector
Strong demand driven by China’s June-30 deadline and Indian market covers most module supply, giving PV module makers opportunity to raise their price. However, since the market vision is not clear by now, module manufacturers tend to maintain good relationships with their clients instead of rising the price. As a result, only few orders were dealt at a higher price level this week.
(Analysis offered by Jason Tsai, analyst at EnergyTrend)