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Last week’s mono-si wafer price reduction effect continued to ferment this week, making the price difference between mono-si and multi-si wafers smaller. Multi-si wafer was still supported by market demand. The upstream supply was quite tight, so multi-si wafer hasn’t enlarged the price gap. India’s launch of defensive tariffs and the impending expiry of European MIP have spread across the market, triggering irrational purchasing and hoarding behavior that can cause prices to fluctuate. Due to the disruptive market conditions, trading requires a rational view of the supply and demand relationship.
Polysilicon
Supply of polysilicon manufacturers in China was tight this week, making the price of multi-si materialstop falling. Output in August may be lower than in July due to the manufacturers’ routine maintenances. So far, the price of multi-si material in China has reached RMB83-90/KG, and the price of mono-si material has remained at RMB95-105/KG. Overseas multi-si material price started to reflect market status, with bottom price below US$10.0/KG.
Si-wafer
This week, si-wafer demand was roughly balanced, and price changes weren’t significant. Although upstream supply of multi-si wafer was tight, due to the uncertain factors of downstream orders, the price was unable to increase. The reasonable price was established at RMB2.45-2.55/Pc. Black silicon product price remained at RMB2.80/Pc. Mono-si wafer price has decreased, with a reasonable price of RMB3.15-3.26/Pc. Overseas price outside China hasn’t changed too much. The price difference of mono-si wafer converged to US$0.400-0.425/Pc. Prices of general multi-si wafer and black wafer maintained at US$0.311-0.375/Pc and US$0.375/Pc, respectively.
PV cell
The multiple factors in the international market which have led to the disruptive situation in the multi-si market include: India’s defensive tariffs which have affected the multi-si PV cell orders in China; Turkey’s summer holidays which resulted in unstable demand; and Europe’s MIP, which will either be canceled or extended. The general reaction towards these disruptive events was slightly extreme and irrational. There were dealers stocking up orders to meet customer demand, while some dealers took a wait-and-see attitude. This situation has led to a decline in Taiwan’s PV cell prices, and the main price fell within US$0.13-0.134/w. Multi-si PV cell price of Chinese manufacturers remained at RMB1.02-1.05/w.
On the other hand, China’s photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects have started to stock up orders,mainly conventional multi-si or even low-efficiencyproducts. 18.4-18.5% efficiency PV cell price of small- and medium-sized enterprises in China basically reached RMB 0.9-0.95/W and general multi-si achieved RMB 0.93-1.06/W. Because multi-si order overall looked empty, more than 18.7% efficiency multi-si PV cellprice of small- and medium-sized enterprises also fell to RMB 1.02-1.03/W.
Due to the price reduction of mono-si wafer, the price–performance ratio of mono-si products was high, but the intensity of stocking up orders was weak. So far, China’s general mono-si PV cell price has been RMB 1.05-1.15/W, but the average price has declined to RMB 1.06/W. High-efficiency mono-si price has stabilized at RMB 1.15-1.21/W.
For overseas markets, general mono-si price remained unchanged at US$0.142-0.145/W, while high-efficiency mono-si price was revised downwards to US$0.170-0.175/W. Multi-si PV cell price has also been revised downwards to US$0.129-0.158/W due to market uncertainty.
Module
The Chinese market had a redistribution of distributed PV orders, up from about 20% before the 531 new policy was announced. With the demand of poverty alleviation system, 270W module continued to destock, with a slight decline in price of RMB 1.8-2.0/W. High-efficiency multi-si price has been RMB 1.85-2.2/W. General mono-si module price decreased to RMB2.05-2.15/W. High-efficiency mono-si price has been reduced to RMB2.20-2.35/W, mainly because the demand for mono-si has not officially started.
It is worth noting that although the 275W module still has a quote of about RMB1.95-2/W, the estimated cost for the end market in fact was around RMB 1.8/W. There are a number of orders in September and October, so the expected price drop pressure will increase after August.
For overseas markets, only the average price of multi-si module fell slightly. General multi-si (270-275W) price was US$0.231-0.265/W. High-efficiency multi-si (280-285W) price decreased to US$0.247-0.275/W.