PV market momentum in China continues to slow down, while PV demands in the U.S., Japan, and Europe are weak as it entering the latter half of the third quarter. The order volumes are estimated to rise only after demand from China's large-scale PV power stations starts to book products. As a result, the market's overall outlook for the beginning of the fourth quarter is relatively pessimistic. As the price decline across the PV supply chain for this quarter is steep, the quotes in the fourth quarter can only be increased through growing demands after tier-one vendors deplete their inventory.

The prices of polysilicon in each region have been decreasing slowly as expected, and the decrease will lead to further price decline for wafers. Although many tier-one and tier- two multi-si wafer vendors have seen a slight decrease in their utilization rates during August, there might be another drop in utilization rates through September. The low utilization rates of PV cell vendors have caused sudden plummet in wafer trading volume, which in turn led to the steep price declines for this week. Wafer price in China have fallen from RMB 5~5.2/pc last week to RMB 4.7~4.9/pc this week. Meanwhile, Taiwan wafer price is generally lower than US$ 0.68/pc. The price quotes of wafers are getting lower every week.

PV cells have experienced the steepest price decline across the PV supply chain, as most PV cell vendors sold their products below costs. Taiwanese PV cell makers will loss more if they produce more, so many of them chose to slash utilization rates. Currently, the average utilization rates for Taiwanese PV cell vendors are lower than 50%. In China, PV cell vendors are also decreasing their utilization rates, and the situation for next month is projected to be even worse. This will make it more difficult for prices to reach real bottom in September.

Since China’s Top Runner Program requires solar developers to use high efficiency PV cells, there are a lot of order inquiries on mono- and multi-si PERC cells. The volume and efficiency performance of PERC cells made in Taiwan is second to none. However, their prices are still prone to being impacted by the price decline of standard PV cells. Currently, the prices of mainstream mono-si PERC cells have already fallen to US$ 0.28-0.3/W.

*EnergyTrend unveils quotes for mono-si PERC cells and multi-si PERC cells as circled in the figure for all your reference. Please contact us t to know more.