PV demand has been boosting since 4Q13, and EnergyTrend predicts that global PV system installation may reach 42GW in 2014. Although the U.S. court has started the anti-dumping and countervailing investigation towards Taiwanese PV cell makers, it doesn’t necessarily impact Taiwanese wafer manufacturers, stated Eversol Company.
If the case were not established, Taiwanese PV cell makers can still sell their products to mainland China and USA as they did before. If the case were established, Taiwanese wafer manufacturers can continue to view China as their main export region as cost is the key reason. Taiwan and China are the two largest PV cell providers so international manufacturers would buy PV cells from China and lead to wafer shortage issue. Accordingly, China can be an export market for Taiwanese wafer manufacturers in the future.
Last December, wafer price appeared to be US$1/piece, and it already increased to US$1.05/piece in January, 2014. As Eversol optimistically predicts that the price will reach US$ 1.08 in February and US$ 1.10 in March, the company is attempting to reach the break-even point in 2H14 so that they may be able to become a listed high-technology company.
Nonetheless, the increased wafer price doesn’t lead to the increased module price. In order to tackle with higher silicon wafer price, manufacturers can only upgrade the 250W 6-inch polysilicon products to 255W or 260W for better profit. On the basis of this factor, Eversol predicts that high efficiency wafer demand with 17.8% rate will boost dramatically in 2014. The company introduced a new product called “E-Wafer” with an 18% efficiency, and it’s able to match 260W+ PV modules demand. Additionally, Helios, a new mono-si wafer with a 21% efficiency in laboratories, is striving for mass production.
At the moment, capacity of Eversol’s silicon wafers is 410MW and the wafers’ capacity utilization reaches 95% already. The company plans to improve their production processes to increase capacity utilization to 115%. Although Eversol doesn’t plan to expand their production, they will continue their outsourcing strategy and cooperating with wafer manufacturers in China for an extra 100MW production capacity.
Regarding business in global markets, orders from European customers represent about half of Eversol’s total shipment. In Japan, Eversol has completed a 1.5GW ground-mounted PV plant project in Hiroshima, and has owned around 80MW pipeline. E-Solar, Eversol’s subsidiary company in Japan, will dedicate to develop rooftop solar power system including PV modules, PV holders and inverters, components that are already certified.
