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| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | March 14, 2019 |
Poly Price
This week, polysilicon for mono wafers experienced more stable supply and demand in China. Despite a slight decline in market prices, with new transactions already being made in early March, prices stayed flat at RMB 80/kg and are less likely to decline further before the end of March. However, the following factors may lead to higher supplies, pushing down prices in April:
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New capacities will be continuously released in China
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Overseas polysilicon makers have resumed production
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No more companies have suspended production.
Polysilicon for multi wafers faced similar situations. Yet, the lower demand has resulted in a simultaneous decline in average price and low price. Prices are expecting to go down further before the end of March.
Overseas prices will also start to reflect a downtrend. With the abundant overseas supplies, prices will continue drop after mid March following the lower demand.
Wafer Price
The multi wafer market witnessed lower prices in both China and overseas, with the market price reaching RMB 2.1/piece and USD 0.279/piece. Price downtrend is likely to continue next week as multi product demand continues go down. On the other hand, mono wafer prices remained unchanged in China and overseas.
Multi wafer production has increased with the previous price rise. Yet, utilization rates of multi cells in March were higher than February but slightly lower than January. If weak demand continues for multi products, market prices of multi wafers may drop to this year’s lowest average price of RMB 2.06/piece and is likely to drop below RMB 2.06/piece in April and May. By then, more multi wafer companies will have to make adjustment to their utilization rates or even suspend production.
Cell Price
The cell sector saw limited price movement for top-tier makers because most cell orders for March have been confirmed in late February and early March. Meanwhile, second-tier makers have started to witness higher inventory level of mono PERC or conventional multi cells, leading to a continuous decline in the low price.
PERC cell with an efficiency over 21.5% is still priced at RMB 1.22-1.26/W and USD 0.16-0.165/W. Taiwan’s mono PERC cell prices remained flat at USD 0.175-0.18/W. Yet, the multi cell market has begun to see slightly lower prices, reaching RMB 0.85-0.90/W.
The overall cell demand will slightly drop as the installation boom comes to an end in India and Japan. Mono PERC and conventional multi cell prices will go down further when negotiating prices for April in late March. However, the price drop of PERC cell is limited following the strong PERC demand from the end-user market and limited new capacities from April to May.
Module Price
Although this year’s low season is approaching, top-tier manufacturers have reached the maximum order quantity in the second quarter, allowing overseas mono PERC prices to stay flat at over USD 0.27/W. Second-tier makers saw lower order visibility, leading to a price slightly lower than top-tier, reaching USD 0.26-0.27/W.
The module market still has higher reliance on overseas demand following the weak demand in China. Conventional multi module has become much less popular in the overseas market this year. Only some top-tier makers have reached the maximum order quantity, resulting in slightly lower multi module prices in China and overseas.
PV Glass Price
This week’s PV glass prices increased to last week’s level. Prices reached RMB 26.5-27 per square meter, a 10% rise compared to RMB 24 per square meter last month. With the settled orders and stable module demand, PV glass prices are likely to stay flat later this month.