March 2014 spot price will be nearly the same as February, and some manufacturers will undergo incremental price increase, said EnergyTrend, a green energy subsidiary of TrendForce last week. PV volume will also be similar to Feb. 2014 levels. Generally speaking, the trend in March is quite close to EnergyTrend’s earlier projection of a slight price hike in the PV industry and decreasing volumess.

 

Polycrystalline silicon’s price quotes continued to rise in March. At the moment, the PV market believes that price will remain high in the short-term resulting in investors’ reluctance to sell out. In addition, manufacturers’ poly-si purchase costs also became higher. Last week poly-Si prices increased 0.77% to US $20.009/kg, surpassing the threshold of US $20/kg.

 

Regarding polycrystalline wafer prices, manufacturers raised March price quotes to support  operations because of China’s stronger domestic demands and higher poly-Si price, which led to higher wafer costs. Furthermore, buyers and sellers have sealed orders, which led to spot price increase of 0.48% to US $1.049/piece last week. Meanwhile, prices of mono-Si wafers remained flat that week.

 

PV cells demand also remained strong last week. Chinese manufacturers’ price quotes remained the same, while Taiwanese manufacturers cell prices rose slightly by 0.25% to US $0.398/watt. In addition, prices for PV modules were kept at the same levels.