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| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | December 06, 2018 |
Poly Price
The polysilicon market witnessed a slight decline in prices this week. Price of mono wafer use polysilicon dropped RMB 2/kg, traded at RMB 79-82/kg. This slight downtrend in prices is likely to continue in the short run for mono wafer use polysilicon. In the aspect of multi wafer use polysilicon, although multi product demand has rebounded and some mono wafer makers use multi wafer use polysilicon to reduce cost, price remained unchanged this week but it’s likely to drop slightly before late-December. Currently, the price gap between mono and multi wafer use polysilicon has reduced further to RMB 5/kg. For the overseas, prices stayed flat, with the trading volume rising significantly. The average trading price reached US$ 8.3-9/kg.
Wafer Price
The Chinese multi wafer market experienced a slight rise in prices this week mainly because of the higher demand of multi products. Two top-tier multi wafer makers scaled up prices while others kept it at last week’s price level. Prices reached RMB 2.1/piece for GCL and Rietech and RMB 2.05-2.08/piece for other manufacturers.
Meanwhile, multi wafer is priced at US$ 0.265-0.27/piece in the overseas owing to the increasing currency rate. With the help of higher demand and currency rate, multi wafer price is likely to continuously rebound next week. In the aspect of mono wafer, prices remained unchanged this week.
Cell Price
Starting from mid-November, the overall market could slowly feel the slight rise in multi product demand. In addition, many cell manufacturers have either gradually lowered multi cell production or switched to mono PERC production, leading to a balanced supply and demand relationship for multi cells again. Meanwhile, affected by the better-than-expected demand at the end of this year, multi cell and mono PERC cell prices increased successfully in December.
The average trading price of multi cell with an efficiency of 18.7% reached RMB 0.88/W and US$ 0.105-0.107/W in December. However, no matter in the overseas or the Chinese market, the multi cell sector will focus on orders before the end of this year, and therefore whether multi cell demand will slightly decline after mid-December remains to be seen.
The higher production proportion of SE-PERC scaled down the supplies of PERC cells with efficiencies of 21.2%-21.4%, allowing prices to rise again this month. Current price reached RMB 1.18-1.2/W. Thanks to the demand support from the “General Top Runner Program”, prices of high-efficiency PERC cells rose substantially. Prices of mono PERC cell with efficiency of more than 21.5% increased to RMB 1.25-1.28/W this week.
Overseas PERC cell prices have reflected an uptrend at the same time. Especially with an installation boom at the end of this year in Taiwan, the Taiwanese market witnessed strong demand. Price of mono PERC cells reached US$ 0.168-0.172/W in Taiwan.
Module Price
For module, the Chinese market witnessed strong demand in Q4. In addition, Europe mainly relies on the Chinese capacities with lower cost now, instead of Southeast Asian capacities. These allowed Chinese top/second-tier manufacturers to achieve a better-than-expected utilization rate in Q4. Currently, all types of module prices remained stable both in China and the overseas.
However, not just cell prices have increased recently, but also glass prices. Many glass manufacturers saw a 10-15% rise in trading price in December, pushing up module bom cost. It’s rumored that the trading price of multi modules that are to be shipped out next year has dropped significantly, and as a result, the price trend of multi modules next year should be viewed prudently.