The European Union recently announced to impose anti-dumping tariff on Chinese solar glass manufacturers. A tariff rate of 17.1%-42.1% may be imposed on solar glass products. According to EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce, although the European Union has started another anti-dumping action on Chinese solar glasses, modules have been exempted from it. Thus, it will have very little effect on the global PV market.
As indicated by EnergyTrend’s data, the front panel used for module packaging is the product that’s being investigated. Such product doesn’t require much use of technology. Hence, Chinese manufacturers use low-cost strategy to win a large amount of market share in the global market. In addition, since finished modules are not included in the investigation, products that use Chinese solar glass may still be exported to Europe. EnergyTrend believes that once the European Union starts the investigation, it will only benefit the glass manufacturers in Europe while production cost may increase for European module manufacturers.
Judging from the spot market’s overall performance, since Chinese polysilicon price remained high and suppliers’ quotation continued to increase in December. Last week’s price reflected an uptrend. For multi-si wafers, supply shortage remained for high-efficiency products. Also, Chinese manufacturers have revised the price upward, which caused spot price to continuously rise. Last week’s average price increased with a 1.22% rise. For mono-si wafers, production has been fully utilized and demand has gone weak. Last week’s average price declined with a 0.84% drop. For cells, rumors had it that Chinese manufacturers may outsource more production to Taiwanese manufacturers due to their current full-production status. However, cell price hasn’t been revised upwards further with last week’s average price being steady. For modules, because product spec has been upgraded and demand has turned weak by the end of the year, buyers and sellers both became more conservative regarding inventory control to avoid price drop from too many inventory. Last week’s module price remained flat.