According to EnergyTrend’s survey, high-efficiency products are still in great demand in the market, which brings hope to the underperforming solar market. But according to related manufacturers, clients are mainly interested in products with conversion efficiencies above; those with efficiencies below 17% are categorized as B-grade products with prices 30-50% lower than those of superior products. EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce, believes that it will bring a new challenge to the Taiwanese manufacturers.
First, multi-Si solar cell products still account for the majority of Taiwanese solar cell makers’ product mix. Due to the fact that a good amount of products’ conversion efficiencies still range between 16.6% to 16.9%, products with conversion efficiencies higher than 17% still make up a relatively small portion of the total production, which the manufacturers’ revenues hinge upon. Moreover, the price gap between multi-Si and mono-Si solar cell products continues to narrow and the prices of 17% (and above) multi-Si and mono-Si solar cell products have become the same. As a result, multi-Si solar cell makers are striving to increase the portion of 17% products in order to gain profit.
Second, on account of the increasing demand for high-efficiency products, more manufacturers are focusing on the future development of N-type products. However, the migration to N-type products cannot be achieved by a sole manufacturer; it requires joint efforts between wafer, cell and module makers and a thorough plan on equipment installations. Based on EnergyTrend’s research, N-type product makers are still the minority in the industry, and all of them cover assorted sectors from wafer to module. For this reason, some Taiwanese wafer, cell and module makers have been discussing the possibility of cooperating in order to achieve vertical integration from wafer to module and put the N-type production into action.