| Category | |
|---|---|
| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | July 12, 2018 |
Poly
Polysilicon prices remain consistent this week, and both top-tier and second-tier Chinese and non-Chinese poly makers increased their scopes of maintenance and capacity reduction. Therefore, the overall market supply is decreasing, and the low average price has climbed up as a result. Currently the demand for multi-Si have shown signs of rebound, and the pull-in appears at a consistent level. The multi-Si wafer use has hence increased slightly to RMB 78-85/kg. For mono-Si wafer use, due to the undersupply situation from second-tier poly makers and the high price of top-tier manufacturers, the formerly low average price has also climbed up slightly. The average price remained at RMB 93/kg. For non-Chinese markets, prices are still in a see-saw affair due to uncertain agreement between the buyer and the seller. The average price is US$ 10/kg.
Wafer
The wafer price remained consistent as well, with few price adjustments for mono-Si done this week. Although the multi-Si demand went up in July, there was still support for mono-Si wafers. For multi-Si wafers, most manufacturers’ inventory has returned to reasonable levels, hence the slightly elevated average price. Top-tier manufacturers have not dramatically raised the price, but small cell makers have felt the pressure for higher prices. Overall, the multi-Si wafer price can bounce back in late July. Under the condition that wafer prices have not seen large fluctuations, and that the price gap has shortened to RMB 1/pc, mono-Si and multi-Si demands will be determined by the quotes of downstream cells and modules.
Cell
Due to the rapid downturn of the entire supply chain, the observation for non-Chinese terminal demand is no longer needed, and non-Chinese orders for cells and modules have once again increased. Under the condition that no additional changes to utilization rate happened recently, cells have seen a more balanced supply and demand.
Conventional mono-Si cells slightly decreased in prices due to weaker demand. For mono-Si PERC cells, the pull-in will become more apparent next month due to the orders from the Chinese General Top Runner. The price decrease has slowed down recently; the average price came to RMB 1.2 to 1.25/W and US$ 0.175 – 0.18/W. However, due to the oversupply situation in the PERC cell segment and the slight decrease of mono-Si wafer prices in July, manufacturers are not willing to stay at high inventory levels, leading to prices lower than RMB 1.2/W and US$ 0.17/W for some orders of PERC cells.
Similar to the upstream polysilicon and wafers, with consistent demand, multi-Si cells have seen slightly increased price thanks to less low-price orders. Recently, top-tier cell makers mostly fell to RMB 1.03 to 1.07/W, while a slight fluctuation was seen in non-Chinese prices due to currency rates, resulting in an averaging price of US$ 0.133-0.136/W.
Module
A series of large-scale bidding have kicked off in China recently. The 300W and 310W mono-Si PERC modules mostly fell to RMB 2.2 to 2.3/W. This average price is apparently lower than the RMB 2.5 to 2.8/W previously seen in the bidding for Top Runner modules in late May.
Generally speaking, the prices of mid- and upstream polysilicon, wafers, and cells have all touched the bottom. Looking at the utilization rate, the module segment is still rather oversupplied in the entire supply chain. Even if the non-Chinese market demand is consistent, the huge gap caused by the new Chinese policies still has difficulties to be filled up. In the near future, all types of modules will continue to decrease at a slow pace.