On the first week after the long holidays in China and Taiwan, prices in the supply chain generally remained flat, and only high efficiency product price went down because of the decrease of MIP in Europe and the increase of mono PERC cell capacity. Because Taiwan’s capacity loses part of the demand from the US and Europe, it suffers pressure of lowering price from the market. Besides, with high material cost, the price is in a weak position this week.
Polysilicon
Under the impact of overhaul and accident, polysilicon effective capacity isn’t enough. However, with the shrinking demand from the US Section 201 case and large-scale decreasing demand from downstream such as the utility-scale ground-mounted power stations in China, supply and demand conditions aren’t tight. This week, polysilicon price mainly remains at RMB 147-150/Kg. Second-level material price and contract price become one level lower: RMB 140-145/Kg. The oversea material price of Chinese market maintains USD 18-18.5/Kg this week. Materials which have lower prices from the US and European manufacturers are lack of supplies.
Si-wafer
Si-wafer price has remained stable this week and each type of product has maintained the same condition before the holidays: diamond wire cut multi-si wafers are in shortfall, slurry wire cut multi-si wafers become secondary necessity good due to the weak demand, and the supply and demand of mono-si wafer are steady. The price of diamond wire cut multi-si wafer this week is RMB 4.5-4.8/pc. Slurry wire cut multi-si wafer price is RMB 4.9-5.2/pc, and mono-si wafer price is RMB 5.8-6/pc.
Although the overall price doesn’t change, after diamond wire cut multi-si wafer becomes the mainstream, keep an eye on whether mono-si wafer price will be forced to lower owing to the gap between mono-si and multi-si prices, easing mono PERC PV cell price from pressure.
PV cell
Under the influence of the decrease of MIP in Europe, high efficiency PV cell starts to experience the pressure of bargaining over the price this week. Especially for PERC products, because of the three factors such as the growth of mainstream efficiency, the expansion of capacity and the decrease of basic price on the market, the entire average price declines. Mono PERC products whose efficiency is below 21% is considered as insufficient efficiency. Their speed of lowering in prices may be faster in order to face new capacity competition.
On the other hand, under MIP’s regulations in EU, there are 20.5 Euro cents of gap between mono-si PV-cell and module prices, making 290-295W module prefer to finish packaging locally after purchasing oversea PV cell. Therefore, there is a difference between the demand of high and low efficiency PERC products.
On account of the downsizing of European niche market and the decrease of high efficiency product price, Taiwanese PV cells are in hardship again. In 4Q17, if there is no proper demand of Chinese distributed system or “Top Runner Program”, Taiwanese PV cells will be unable to compete during the halt of insufficient capacity from Chinese manufacturers in the short term. The prices will be under the pressure of decreasing due to the reducing outlet of shipment.
This week, mainstream price of mono-si PERC PV cell with above 21% efficiency is USD 0.3-0.32/W and 20.6-20.9% efficiency PERC PV cell price is USD 0.28-0.3/W. With the end of storage period due to Section 201 case, high efficiency products will largely be imported in Europe. It is expected that further intense competition will appear until the price reaches MIP’s range in Europe.
Module
Similarly, module price suffers pressure of lowering because of the two factors which are the decrease of MIP in Europe and the slowing demand because of the US Section 201 case. Currently, larger price drop appears in 290-300W PERC product and the decrease of 0.5-1 pennies for 300W mono-si module, making the price become USD 0.43-0.51/W. 290W is USD 0.42-0.5/W. The rest of the regular efficiency module prices remain steady. For multi-si module,owing to the improvement of technique and efficiency, the cost decreases. In the future, it will be likely to drop in order to face the competition in Chinese module tender projects.
