This week, the entire price in solar supply chain didn’t change much; however, there are still a number of noteworthy developments. Demands of mono-si and multi-si continued to show opposite trends, and the mono-si supply chain suffered more pressures. This trend is expected to continue into the near future. In terms of the future market prices, they will start to reflect the increase of mono-si inventory and the insufficient supply of diamond wire saw multi-si wafer.
Polysilicon
Although the result of China’s double reverse tax rate for the polysilicon suppliers in Korea has been released, because it mainly influenced mono-si and the tax rate didn’t change much, the impact on the entire average price was small. Only quoted price range expanded.
Polysilicon prices in China varied depending on materials quality, manufacturer and payment method, remaining basically at RMB 146-154/kg. For the market, due to the demand of downstream multi-si wafer, current supply and demand of polysilicon are still tight. However, the overhauls of polysilicon industry have come to the end. Thus, the supply in late December will increase. Yet, the price on the market will likely decline starting from late December. Currently, there are only a few amounts of spot goods, and only some dealers have responded to the change of double reverse tax rate. The entire price has a small chance to increase.
Si-wafer
Mono-si and multi-si wafer prices this week didn’t change. However, there were two different trends because the end demands for mono-si and multi-si products weren’t the same: the demand for multi-si wafer was tight, while the demand for mono-si wafer remained weak.
Though the quoted prices of mono-si wafer from the major manufacturers remained the same, spot market suffered more pressures due to the insufficient demand of downstream high efficiency products, making some spot prices start to drop and the bottom price reach RMB 5.5/pc.
For multi-si wafer, because diamond wire saw multi-si PV cell price was RMB 0.05/W lower than slurry saw multi-si PV cell price, orders tended to come from diamond wire saw multi-si PV cell, boosting the demand for diamond wire saw multi-si wafer and causing insufficient supply. However, owing to the uncertainty of future market and the maintenance of competitive advantage against mono-si, quoted prices of diamond wire saw multi-si wafer from manufacturers mostly remained flat.
PV cell
This week, multi-si PV cell price stayed the same. Yet, because the market share of diamond wire saw PV cell, which has lower average price, became higher, the entire average price of multi-si PV cell slightly decreased. This week, diamond wire saw multi-si PV cell price was RMB 1.66-1.71/W and the main low-priced product was color shift product; slurry saw multi-si PV cell price was RMB 1.72-1.74/W.
For mono-si PV cell, because of the weak end demand, output and sales volume of mono-si decreased, especially for the mono-si PV cells in Taiwan. Because they gradually lost the advantage of trade barrier, the price dropped deeply, making the distance between mono-si PV cell prices from Chinese manufacturers become short. This week, mono-si PV cell price from Taiwanese manufacturers was USD 0.24-0.245/W. Chinese manufacturers’ price was RMB 1.68-1.73/W. Mono-si PERC PV cell price has kept decreasing. The price from Taiwanese manufacturers dropped to USD 0.255-0.265/W. The lowest price from Chinese manufacturers has approached RMB 1.9/W, forcing the general mono-si PV cell price to go down.
Module
This week, because of the downstream strong demand, multi-si module price was quite stable relatively. The price from Chinese first-tier manufacturers reached RMB 2.75-2.8/W and the second-tier manufacturers’ price was RMB 2.7-2.75/W. Mono-si and high efficiency module prices went down owing to the decrease of PV cell price, especially for 290-300W mono-si PERC module. Its price kept declining due to downstream weak demand. Module price this week was around USD 0.39-0.46/W. The lowest price for 290W module has become close to the general mono-si prices of USD 0.37/W and RMB 2.88/W.
During October and November in 2017, the US market has become a risky one because of Section 201 petition. Driven by benefits and shipping goals, some module manufacturers chose the end of December as the deadline and shipped to the US to accumulate the goods, making the inventory in the US increase. The main shipment was multi-si module and it became one of the main supports for recent demand on the multi-si market.