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After going through five-months of downturn, PV industry is back on track in June as new polysilicon and high-efficiency cell orders pour in. Most tier-one cell manufacturers sold out the existing capacities, therefore they will raise sale prices in June to compensate for the losses in 1Q15.
Starting from the end of May, capacity utilization rates increased substantially for cell manufacturers, according to EnergyTrend’s investigation. Manufacturers indicated that many rush orders could be seen in the beginning of June and tier-one cell manufacturers almost sold out existing high-efficiency cell capacities in June. Since high-efficiency cell prices dropped about 10% in 1Q15, cell makers suffered from losses. Thus, cell makers begin to raise prices after they are certain that they are getting demand from the customers, hoping to increase 17.8% high-efficiency cell prices by more than 3%. Yet, they are still negotiating with the end-users. As for normal-grade cells, oversupply issues still exist because improving demand caused tier-two Chinese makers to re-activate the productions, leading to weak prices.
Overall, downstream demand growth will only affect midstream cell manufacturers. It will have limited impact on upstream wafer manufacturers. Hence, there is more room for wafer capacity adjustment. Aside from the allocated capacity for the OEM, market pressures caused by selling too many multi-si wafers can be avoided. However, many capacities are still being sold at spot prices in the market, leading to oversupply issues for wafers. Wafer prices will also continue to decline as polysilicon prices drop.
This Week’s Spot Price
Polysilicon market prices kept declining due to high level of inventory. Polysilicon prices dropped 1.27% to US$15.6/kg. Super high-efficiency multi-si wafer prices dropped 0.58% to US$0.852/piece, while high-efficiency multi-si wafer declined 0.61% to US$0.818/piece. Mono-si wafer prices remained at US$1.005/piece. The increase in high-efficiency multi-si cell demand led to 0.66% rise in prices, with the average prices reaching US$0.306/w. Mono-si cell prices declined 0.28% to US$0.359/w. 250w multi-si module prices stayed flat at US$0.53/w and US$0.6/w for 265w modules.
(Photo Credit: Commons Wikimedia)