Recent polysilicon prices continue to fall. Taiwan can even see prices at US$ 12.5/kg. Affected by an import price of RMB 106/kg, polysilicon prices will still reflect a downtrend in China.
Multi-Si wafer shortage remains in China and Taiwan. Procurement staff had to purchase enough wafers to fulfill a large quantity of cell orders in January. Cell manufacturers try to confirm January wafer demand although multi-Si wafer makers haven’t come up with a price quote for January yet. Due to weaker demand, mono-Si wafer suffers from significant price decline, with the trading prices almost reaching US$ 0.88-0.89/pc in Taiwan. It’s expected that the price gap between mono and multi-Si wafers will be US$ 0.02 only in January.
Overseas module prices have started to drop, leading to limited price increase for cells. Whether cell price can increase in January will have to depend on how much multi-Si wafer prices increase. Despite slow price increase, recent demand from the US and India will result in full order status in the beginning of 2016 in Taiwan.
Module manufacturers will be running at full capacity thanks to strong power plant demand in China before the Lunar New Year. Barely any stocks have left for this year. Although some manufacturers try to increase prices during this time when demand is strong, module prices are likely to stay flat.