Market awaits recovery after holiday amid disparate supply chain price trends

Polysilicon

Monthly polysilicon production volume will reach RMB 73-74 GW in February, a 2-3% month-on-month decrease primarily attributed to fewer working days within the month and manufacturers still ramping up capacities and improving quality. Overall, production capacity remains stable, except for release of some Tier-2 manufacturers.

During the Lunar New Year holiday, ingot manufacturers, including leading companies, will keep utilization rates unchanged or higher, resulting in strong polysilicon demand. The market shows signs of pre-holiday stockpiling and ongoing buyer-seller standoffs.

Short-term price trend is increasingly related to supply-demand relationship as demand props up trading prices. Another pillar of polysilicon prices is surging in n-type wafer production, which has put high-quality, affordable polysilicon in dire demand.

Polysilicon prices in dollar terms are based on prices at delivery of three non-China manufacturers. High-price sporadic orders are rarely factored in, given the scarcity of the resource and that most orders are long-term orders. Additionally, the spot price report excludes extreme prices due to special business causes and only reflects prices in a reasonable range.
 

Wafer

While planning holiday schedules and production in February, manufacturers bet on the post-holiday demand. Currently, the wafer sector hopes to maintain utilization rates and has no evident intention to cut production. Therefore, the previously expected supply-demand mismatch that may push up prices after the Lunar New Year holiday becomes less likely. As cell and module makers cut production during the holiday, inventory accumulation may occur if wafer manufacturers maintain utilization rates after the holiday.

Trading prices rose to RMB 2.05/piece for p-type M10 wafers while sitting at RMB 2.8/piece for G12 ones this week. N-type wafer prices came in at RMB 2/piece and RMB 3.1/piece for M10 and G12 formats, respectively. Thanks to the significant increase in wattage, the price per watt for n-type M10 wafers was 8-9% lower than that of p-type ones, meaning a superior price-performance ratio.

Before the holiday begins, cell manufacturers continue stockpiling wafers. Delivery time has been extended recently due to the winter. Prices for n-type M10 wafers may reach RMB 2.05/piece if wafer manufacturers deliver in a timely schedule. G12 wafers remain minor, with stable prices stemming from steady supply and demand.
 

Cell

Manufacturers plan to take down time or reduce production during the Lunar New Year holiday. Some of them will upgrade PERC production capacity while some enhance existing TOPCon production lines with LECO or other efficiency-improving, cost-reducing processes. Recently, the LECO laser-assisted sintering technology has been gaining more attention. Incorporating this laser process can improve the conversion efficiency of TOPCon cells effectively by over 0.3%, resulting in a wattage gain of 5-10 W. The technology will likely become a standard process in 1Q24.

Trading prices for p-type cells sustained, coming in at RMB 0.38/W for both M10 and G12 cells. Meanwhile, leading, non-vertically integrated cell manufacturers maintained price premiums, with prices for high-efficiency products reaching RMB 0.39/W.

This week, mainstream trading prices for n-type M10 cells were relatively stable, averaging RMB 0.46-0.47/W. The price gap between TOPCon and PERC cells stabilized at RMB 0.08-0.09/W. G12 HJT cells, primarily for in-house use, saw prices vary significantly for external sales, coming in at RMB 0.6-0.7/W for high-efficiency ones.

Cell price trends will remain steady in the short term despite significantly reduced production, even increasing by RMB 0.01-0.02/W after the holiday if production cuts exceed expectations. Still, when and how fast price hikes will depend on the affordability of the module sector.
 

Module

Module prices were little changed, for module makers took fewer orders this week as the Lunar New Year holiday approached.

Average prices for PERC modules stabilized at RMB 0.88-0.9/W this week, while the price gap between PERC and TOPCon modules narrowed to RMB 0.05-0.08/W due to the delivery of new orders of the latter, for which prices came in at RMB 0.95-0.98/W.

HJT module prices came in at RMB 1.15-1.25/W in China, lingering at USD 0.150-0.170/W in non-China markets.

As some module makers extended manufacturing down time to 10-15 days, planned module production in February worldwide decreased by 2-3 GW from the initial estimates to 37-38 GW. Some module makers have yet to determine planned production, given the obscure demand outlook in March.

Mid-to-long-term price quotes kept showing signs of declining. Overall, module prices are unlikely to rebound after the holiday, lingering at a lower range.