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Polysilicon
Polysilicon price has remained stable this week. However, owing to weak end demand, some downstream si-wafer and PV cell capacities have been shut down. Some polysilicon manufacturers may lower their prices in the end of January, and there will be large-scale price reduction for the orders in February. In terms of overseas polysilicon prices, due to the impacts of supply shortfall and risk control factors, currently they show no sign of moving down.
Si-wafer
Si-wafer price was steady this week. As mono-si PV cell price and mono-si module price quickly moved toward multi-si, the price–performance ratio of mono-si products massively increased and mono-si wafer demand bounced back. Yet, because the overall demand on the market was still weak and there wasn’t enough demand for si-wafer, the price tended to be low.
In terms of multi-si wafer, because the demand declined this week, the price generally decreased RMB 0.05/pc. The mainstream price of diamond wire saw multi-si wafer came to RMB 4.4-4.55/pc. For the average price in USD, because there wasn’t much manufacturers reducing the prices, the price was between USD 0.62-0.64/pc. However, the average price slightly went down. Overall, the spread between multi-si wafer prices and mono-si wafer prices has been widened.
PV cell
Owing to demand reduction and project postponement, downstream module manufacturers started to stop purchasing PV cells. Besides, mono-si PV cell price rapidly drew near last week, making multi-si PV cell prices drop respectively during the sluggish market condition in January. This week, diamond wire saw multi-si PV cell price decreased to RMB 1.58-1.62/W, which is slightly lower than mono-si PV cell price.
Mono-si PV cell price didn’t change much this week and remained at RMB 1.62-1.66/W. Currently mono-si PV cell demand is slightly improving. Whether the price will drop next week will depend on the actual strategy of each manufacturer.
Module
Although tier-one module manufacturers had high capacity utilization through scheduling order and overseas demand, the demand has weakened owing to various factors. These factors include the dramatic decrease of China’s demand in January. The demand of distributed system in the end of December has mostly completed. The uncertainty of India, the main market in Q1, has increased because of recent trade issues. The module manufacturers will first cut down the order of PV cell, making the influence of the decreasing end-market demand approach to upstream supply chain and boosting price reduction for the supply chain. By Chinese New Year, module price is expected to decrease slowly on a weekly basis; after Chinese New Year, the price will remain stable due to the implementation of big projects.
Explanation for the Adjustment of Price Trend Structure
This week, Energy Trend widely rearranged the price trend content sector, separating RMB and USD. Both prices respectively represent the average prices for Chinese market and non-Chinese market.
The price trend model in the past was the mixed price on the international market. Therefore, after the separation this week, the prices in USD will change discontinuously because of the differences in quoted price foundation. Generally, the average price of non-Chinese market may become a little higher than the previous mixed price of the international market.
This week, the module manufacturers’ slow speed in purchasing PV cells has resulted in intensive price reduction for multi-si PV cell. In terms of mono-si products, because of the previous close spread and increasing price–performance ratio, the price was stable this week. It is expected that the price decreasing effect can influence the upstream and downstream and can urge mono-si products to lower the prices.
