The downward price trend of polysilicon in China was halted during the past week because of slight supply shortage of wafers. However, polysilicon outside of China remained oversupply so the spot prices were hard to retain at the same level as they were in prior weeks.
Polysilicon is the only sector in PV value chain that faces price stress. The supply of multi-si wafer was slightly shorter than demand so drove an upward trend of spot prices. EnergyTrend expects a price increase by around US$0.01~0.015/pc in December. In contrast, however, prices of mono-si wafers were still weak. Recent prices in Taiwan have reported to drop down to prices lower than US$0.92/pc.
PV cells enjoyed price raise in the week. Some Taiwan-made PV cells with 17.8% conversion efficiency were sold by US$0.335/W, and the spot price could further climb to US$0.34/W, of which is expected to rise in near future. Nonetheless, the upward trend could stop after the Chinese New Year’s Holiday in 2016 because many manufacturers expects weaken demands after the holiday.
Besides, Chinese clients are turning to buy PV cells with higher efficiency for increasing PV modules’ power output. To manufacture 265W PV modules, demand for high-efficiency PV cells is expected to remain strong.
Demand to PV modules remained strong thanks to China’s domestic solar installation boom. First-tier manufacturers have been producing under full capacity and orders were still highly visible. In the recent, some 260W modules were transacted by price up to RMB 4.05/W, and the quotes seem to climb week by week in the future. Yet some PV systems are still waiting for the Chinese government’s subsidies – if PV system owners were unable to obtain subsidies in time, it would impact operation of PV system developers and EPC service providers in 2016. The delayed subsidies will negatively influence China’s promotion to domestic market.