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The postponement of some grid-connection plans, originally scheduled on June 30, on the Chinese market has pushed back the demand for PV cells and modules to July, stabilizing prices at various sectors of the PV supply chain this week, which may begin to tumble in the second half of July, as there will be only demand related to the "Top Runner Program" and " distributed PV generation systems left in China after July and demand in India will also slacken in August.
Meanwhile, PV prices in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, however, have kept on hiking, jacking up end-demand prices in the U.S. and Europe. In sharp contrast to the uncertain business outlook for Chinese firms in Q3, U.S. demand is expected to strengthen further, thanks to the continuing concern about Section 201, extension of third-party countries’ high capacity utilization rate to August and beyond, and the approaching of U.S. ITC’s final ruling in September.
Price trend
Polysilicon prices have stabilized in the range of RMB 115-120/kg this week. Chinese firms expect polysilicon prices to remain stable, possibly with a slight decline, in July, a trend which will continue subsequently. EnergyTrend also believes that price decline, if any, will be limited.
Wafer prices have begun to diverge among different regions. Prices in Taiwan and other places, except China, will trend upward on robust demand, bolstering end-demand prices. Clouded by blurry market outlook, China's domestic prices, still stable now, are more likely to drop.
Prices of PV cells and modules are experiencing a similar trend. Affected by anti-dumping and countervailing duties, U.S. demand has emerged, ahead of schedule, overstraining the capacities of Taiwan and third-party countries and jacking up prices rapidly. Taiwan's PV cell price, quite stable this week, will be driven to go up next week.
As for mono-si supply chain, LONGi, a major mono-si wafer supplier, cut its mono-si wafer price by US$0.02 last week, to US$0.78-0.80 per wafer, prompting rivals and companies in the downstream value chain to lower prices, as well.
(Analysis provided by Jason Tsai, analyst at EnergyTrend. Translated by a contracted translator with TrendForce Corp.)