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This week, the market demand was still weak. The 630 installation rush didn’t go as expected, which may be related to the wait-and-see attitude on the market caused by government’s policy. Due to low demand and the gap between supply and price, the supply chain market status of mono-si and multi-si products differed. Polysilicon reached the peak season and the supply became balanced. Yet, owing to low demand, the price of polysilicon material became unstable. In the sectors such as si-wafer, PV cell and module, mono-si and multi-si became quite different. The production costs of mono-si and multi-si modules were the same, but high efficiency products were more popular on the market, resulting in the high demand of mono-si. However, multi-si was forced to reduce production.
Polysilicon
This week, polysilicon price remained stable. Chinese mono-si material price remained above RMB 130/Kg. Polysilicon material price was RMB 122-127/Kg.
With the planned expansion of production in the first half of the year, the increased supply of polysilicon material is expected to create new bargaining space. Some clients even hope to re-negotiate with suppliers who have previously completed order transactions, but this will not be successful. In the future, price changes of polysilicon are likely to change according to the demand of individual order. Polysilicon material will be more affected.
Si-wafer
Because the demand of mono-si remained strong enough to support the price, this week, mono-si wafer price became stable. The status of multi-si wafer was sluggish. The percentage of second-tier and third-tier manufacturers selling or reducing production increased, causing the appearance of RMB 3.1/pc on the market and even indirectly affecting the target price of first-tier multi-si wafer manufacturers to RMB 3.3/pc.
Price of mono-si wafer was RMB 4.45-4.5/pc, and the reasonable trading price of multi-si wafer should fall in the range of RMB 3.45-3.85 /pc. However, the trend of mono-si and multi-si wafer was affected by the drop of market condition, causing their prices to move in different directions.
PV cell
This week, PV cell price trend basically followed si-wafer: mono-si price remained unchanged and multi-si price was lowered due to the pressure from first-tier manufacturers. There were even cells priced at RMB 5.5/pc (around RMB 1.22/W) for some small manufacturers. Yet, the potential for a transaction was low.
The demand for multi-si products in China was low. With higher price–performance ratio and demand, the increase of capacity utilization has contributed to the overall cost reduction for high efficiency mono-si products, creating a positive cycle and bringing the highest profits for high efficiency mono-si products. High efficiency mono-si PV cell price was above RMB 1.62/W and the general mono-si price was RMB 1.48/W; high efficiency multi-si PV cell price was RMB 1.33-1.55/W.
Module
This week, the module market hasn’t changed much. The price trend and demand followed the changes of si-wafer and PV cell. The demand for high efficiency mono-si PERC module was steady. Multi-si module maintained last week’s condition: manufacturers that cannot resist price pressures have begun to sell at lower prices. Owing to the low demand of multi-si in China, the supply chain faced greater difficulty recently. Compared with over RMB 2.6/W for mono-si module and RMB 2.7/W for high efficiency products, multi-si module price was around RMB 2.5/W.
