PV Wafer and Module Price Quotes Continue to Drop due to Strong Price Competition between Makers

PV manufacturers are still conservative about market demand even though the result of the US-China anti-dumping preliminary verdict will be announced soon. These circumstances have led to weak demand in July and slow stock clearance have led to high inventory levels within the overall supply chain. Recent market prices have also substantially declined and certain quotations even decreased below manufacturers’ breakeven point, which in turn led to lowest OEM prices in recent times, according to EnergyTrend, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. 

“Among all PV products, polysilicon is the one that has relatively stable pricing. However, since more people have requested to re-negotiate polysilicon prices and contract material clearance went slow in June, manufacturers have started to purchase less polysilicon or even stopped purchasing it. On the other hand, wafer and module price quotes continued to drop, with multi-si wafer prices dropping below US$0.90/piece to US$0.88/piece,” said Arthur Hsu, research manager of EnergyTrend. 

Price quotes for high-efficiency multi-si cell technology was around US$0.35/watt, with the lowest being US$0.32/watt, and that for normal-grade was about US$0.33/watt, with the lowest being US$0.3/watt. Most mono-si cell prices remained at above US$0.40/watt, which had less impact. Meanwhile, the lowest quotation for high-efficiency multi-si modules came to US$0.55/watt and that for normal-grade dropped to US$0.52/watt. Mono-si module prices remained at above US$0.60/watt. 

“OEM prices declined as product prices dropped. Current cell OEM prices reached US$0.12-0.13/watt and that for wafers dropped below US$0.53/piece, which showed that sellers continued to give in on prices to increase shipments and utilization rates,” added Hsu. 

This Week’s Price Quotes 

Pressured by decreased demand and excess inventory, market prices continued to decrease. Multi-si wafer prices declined 2.26% to US$0.952/piece. Mono-si wafer prices came to US$1.182/piece, down 0.76%. Cell prices dropped 2.23% to US$0.351/watt due to weak demand and excess inventory. Module prices declined 0.86% to US$0.577/watt because Chinese demand did not meet market expectations, and thus second-tier Chinese manufacturers kept lowering the price quotes.