Prices of solar products, materials to be down through Aug - EnergyTrend

Price declines for all solar products along with polysilicon are expected in June-August 2016, which marks the slowest season for the photovoltaics (PV) manufacturing sector, EnergyTrend says.

At present, prices of multi-crystalline silicon (multi-Si) products are low as they were weakened by seasonality and the end of the installation rush in China, says Corrine Lin, assistant research manager for TrendForce’s EnergyTrend division.

The PV cell market has experienced the steepest price drops since the end of the Chinese New Year holidays. Cell prices are expected to soon fall below USD 0.3 (EUR 0.26) per W. This decline will also affect the price of modules.

At the same time, the price of polysilicon and mono-crystalline silicon (mono-Si) wafers are relatively high currently. Especially in China, polysilicon prices have gone up substantially because wafer producers have been running their plants at full capacity and even undergoing expansions. Moreover, the Chinese government has complicated the country’s supply by imposing stricter control over polysilicon imports in early April to prevent smuggling.

The average spot price of the raw material in China has increased to above CNY 130 (USD 20.08/EUR 17.65) per kg and is seen to continue rising through the first half of May, EnergyTrend added.

Following the June-August period of price decreases, demand will revive in the US, China, Japan and India, and prices for all solar products and materials are expected to recover.

(CNY 10 = USD 1.544/EUR 1.359)

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.880)

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