Note: The photovoltaic price trend of EnergyTrend will be suspended for one week (October 5th) during the holiday of Mid-Autumn and National Day.
Polysilicon
The polysilicon market continues the trend from last week, where the decline of partial closing prices has actuated a minor adjustment in the overall polysilicon prices. As the National Day of the PRC approaches, downstream wafer businesses have begun the procurement of polysilicon successively for stocking purposes after the holiday. Looking at the current negotiation of orders, the overall price trend is relatively stagnant, where the downstream sector wishes to continue to suppress on the prices due to comparatively well demand, and most businesses are adhering to a wait-and-see attitude. The supply volume of the current polysilicon market is on an ascending phase, and a number of polysilicon businesses are becoming less willing in maintaining the same quotations, who are compromising on a certain degree in prices in order to obtain the orders in October, which propels the continuous depletion in polysilicon quotations. The mainstream quotation for mono polysilicon has been dropped to RMB 93-98/kg this week, with the average price lowered to RMB 95/kg, whereas the mainstream quotation for multi polysilicon has arrived at roughly RMB 63-68/kg, and an average price that has been declined to RMB 65/kg.
Looking at the supply status for the polysilicon market during September, the supply volume of polysilicon businesses has been progressively elevating, and the domestic production volume of polysilicon has reached to 32K tons, which is a MoM improvement of roughly 20%. 8 domestic polysilicon businesses, including Daqo, Xinte, and Asia Silicon, have been operating in full load as of this week, and the void in the production capacity from Xinjiang between July and August has been substantially repaired. The assist from the provision of polysilicon businesses outside of Shanghai, along with the further release of supply volume from Yongxiang, East Hope, and GCL-Poly that is expected to occur in October, will stabilize the demand and supply status. The prices of polysilicon are not expected to sustain a major fluctuation within the short term, and the trend of market prices will depend on the bargaining progress between leading polysilicon and wafer businesses.
Wafer
The demand and supply remains stable for the wafer market this week, with merely a minor escalation in the quotation for G1. Major supplier Longi has revealed the quotations of mono-Si wafers for October, with minor increase in overseas prices in accordance with the exchange rate, and the overall domestic quotations for wafers remain unchanged, where the collaborative amplification in the active stocking strategy for downstream clients prior to the National Day has also helped with the robustness of wafer prices. Simultaneously, the synergistic effort in the reinforcement of wafer supply and demand for Longi and Tongwei continues to contribute to the expansion in the production capacity of polysilicon, and the two businesses hope to establish a formidable collaboration of complementary advantages from polysilicon to modules
Pertaining to wafer prices, as the downstream sector continues to elevate the procurement demand for M6 mono-Si wafers, a number of wafer businesses have been gradually shifting the production capacity of G1 wafer to M6, which results in an overall stable demand and supply of G1, and a marginal price increase to RMB 3-3.1/pc. Regarding M6, the overall closing price in the market has a larger span at RMB 3-3.3/W, and an average price of RMB 3.2/W. The recent stabilization in polysilicon, and the impact of upstream polysilicon cost on wafers, have provided a certain level of support for the quotations for multi-Si wafers, and the demand is centralized on medium-efficiency wafers, high-efficiency wafers, and black silicon, with the overseas and domestic average prices arriving at RMB 1.55/W and US$0.211/W respectively.
Cells
The quotations for cells are fundamentally stabilized this week as the demand improves in October. The gradual alleviation in the price pressure for upstream raw materials and silver paste, together with the invigorated demand for high-efficiency modules, have provided a support for the overall cell prices. In addition, the downstream demand is steadily shifting to M6 cells, though the overall production capacity of M6 in the market is substantially smaller than that of G1, and that the supply for the former has yet to fully release, thus the supply of M6 mono-Si cells is expected to remain relatively tight in 4Q20 under flourishing demand.
The fluctuations for the prices of various cells have decelerated this week. Regarding mono-Si cells, the market demand for mono-Si M6 has evidently increased, which leads to a continuously resilient quotation for M6, with the closing price this week congregated at RMB 0.92-0.95/W. The demand for G1 cell has been declining moderately, with the price of single-sided cells remained stable temporarily, whereas the quotation interval for bifacial G1 cells has been enlarged to RMB 0.83-0.91/W. The demand for multi-Si cells has been relatively sluggish recently, though the quotations no longer have wiggle room due to the restriction derived from the cost, and will continue to be stable within the short term with a price interval remained at RMB 0.53-0.6/W.
Modules
The quotations for high-efficiency modules remain sturdy this week, with apparent differentiation between the quotation trends of first and second-tier businesses. The high-efficiency 355-365 / 425-435W mono-Si PERC module has seen relatively well demand this week, with more concentrated orders from first-tier businesses, which prompts the price interval to be stabilized at RMB 1.58-1.7/W, whereas the weaker ability in obtaining orders for second and third-tier module businesses has led to signs of loosened module quotations, and the quotation for partial 325-335W module has diminished to RMB 1.52/W. On the other hand, the recent tender market has witnessed a number of bid prices at merely about RMB 1.5/W, with a relatively small transaction volume that has not created significant impact to the quotation of modules.
A resonance is expected to occur in the domestic and overseas demand during 4Q20. The overall suspension and postponement for the end demand in the country persists in 3Q20, and a number of projects have progressed in various phases, with primary support coming from projects of UHV and residential photovoltaic, thus the main drive for the domestic photovoltaic market during 4Q20 is expected to thrive on affordable and competitive projects. Looking at the overseas markets, the COVID-19 pandemic had created larger impact to photovoltaic installation in partial regions, where the development of photovoltaic had exceeded the initial anticipation for some areas. Take Germany for instance, the country had an accumulated installation of 2.4GW in 1H20, which is a YoY growth of 14%. The US and Japanese markets have a higher acceptance in price increases from the supply chain, where Vietnam had experienced a stronger demand within Southeast Asia, and the Indian market has sustained stagnancy due to the pandemic. The intensive release of advantaged photovoltaic information from the macroscopic level of US and European economies has accelerated the “green recovery”, and the end demand for photovoltaic in the US and Europe is expected to surge expeditiously in 4Q20 under mitigated pandemic status.