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| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | December 07, 2017 |
Although rumor has it that the US will announce the result for the “Section 201” case on January 23rd 2018 instead, the number of US orders placed has reduced in December. In addition, because Europe will lower the minimum import price (MIP) further on January 1st 2018, the European market started to pull out fewer goods starting from Q4. Due to the weaker demand in the US and Europe and the completion of the projects for the “Top Runner Program” in China, demand of PERC modules kept declining, leading to lower PERC prices.
Poly
After China’s Ministry of Commerce announced the new duty rates for Korean polysilicon imports, polysilicon prices slightly increased in December. The average trading price of polysilicon reached RMB$ 149-153/kg for multi-Si and RMB 155/kg for mono-Si. The price gap of polysilicon used in mono and multi-Si wafers is expecting to widen following the increase of polysilicon capacities used in multi-Si wafers.
Although the polysilicon market has experienced tight supply for a long time, some top-tier Chinese manufacturers are still going through the equipment maintenance in December, and therefore the supply shortage issue won’t be alleviated until late-2017. This caused polysilicon prices to remain high in early-January 2018, putting more pressures on mid-to-downstream manufacturers that kept lowering prices.
Wafer
Last week, the average trading price of 180µm mono-Si wafers dropped to RMB 5.5/piece in China and US$ 0.735/piece in the overseas. The prices of mono and multi-Si wafers remained stable this week. The diamond wire (DW) multi-Si wafer market witnessed strong demand, supporting the prices. Meanwhile, prices of mono-Si wafers stayed weak as cell makers lowered their procurement on cells significantly.
Cell
Cell prices continued to reflect a downtrend due to the weaker demand of mono-Si and PERC modules. This week, the average trading price of conventional mono-Si cells dropped to RMB 1.68-1.71/W in China, close to DW multi-Si cell prices. PERC cell is priced at US$ 0.255-0.26/W in Taiwan without many new orders placed. Both Chinese and Taiwanese makers have suspended some of their mono-Si PERC capacities or switched back to producing multi-Si cells in December, putting stock pressures on certain mono-Si wafer makers at the end of this year.
Module
According to InfoLink’s latest price forecast, PERC module prices have dropped significantly in countries outside of Europe and the US. It’s common for 295-300W modules to reach US$ 0.36-0.38/W. PERC module is priced at US$ 0.35-0.37/W in the major battlefield – Japan.
On the other hand, the strong DG demand in the Chinese market didn’t stimulate PERC module demand. Although PERC module is priced at RMB 2.95-3/W in China, PERC demand remained weak. It’s expected that PERC prices will decline further.