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| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | August 16, 2017 |
The PV supply chain keeps fluctuating. Not just Longi will lower the supplies for mono-Si wafers; the unexpected black out in Taiwan the day before yesterday also directly affected the production of multi and mono-Si ingot. This will need more than 4-5 days to fully resume the production. Fortunately, there were not as many orders transacted this week, allowing the overall supply chain prices to stay flat.
Poly Price
For polysilicon, the schedule of equipment maintenance has gradually become clear for manufacturers. The short supply situation will continue in August and September. The average trading price of polysilicon reached RMB 140-145/kg and will remain high in September. Following the significant increase in the Chinese polysilicon prices, the lower overseas polysilicon price with 50% of tariff rate is just US$ 18/kg higher than the spot price in China. Therefore, the lower-priced overseas polysilicon has been swept away, leading to higher prices.
Wafer Price
The multi-Si wafer market has mostly finished the negotiation last week. Under the circumstances where there were no extra transactions this week, the average trading price of multi-Si wafers reached RMB 5.1-5.3/piece and RMB 4.65-4.75/piece for diamond wire multi-Si wafers. The Taiwanese market witnessed more serious short supply, with the prices slightly increasing this week. It’s difficult to get the wafers that cost below US$ 0.7/piece and it will be even more difficult to get later on.
Due to the lower supplies of Longi, many mono-Si wafer makers have planned to increase the prices. The spot price is expecting to slightly rise next week.
Cell Price
For cells, high cell prices gave a lot of pressures to module makers. The average trading price of multi-Si cells has peaked at RMB 1.85/W (US$ 0.235-0.239/W). Cell makers have started to face the price reduction requests from module makers. In addition, the high wafer prices have made cell profits to be squeezed by both upstream and downstream sectors at the same time, which put cell makers in a tough situation. On the other hand, the mono-Si cell market witnessed stable price trend this week, with the mono-Si PERC cell prices reaching US$ 0.32-0.35/W.
Module Price
The module market still witnessed chaotic pricing. Due to the increase in auxiliary material prices, mono and multi-Si module prices slightly increased in China recently. However, power plant manufacturers continued to give pressures to module makers. Those with fewer negotiation abilities still see continuous decline in prices. In fact, if module prices drop below RMB 2.8/W and deduct the processing costs from the price, manufacturers without their own cell capacities may choose to quit. Consequently, module prices stayed flat at RMB 2.8-2.85/W. But as demand weakens after June 30th, the price may begin to reflect a downtrend in late-August.
Looking ahead, as the demands slightly lowered in China and strong demand brought by the investment tax credit (ITC) in the US weakened, the cell and module markets are expecting to face a turning point of prices from late-August to early-September. All manufacturers are keeping a vigilant eye on it.