China’s installation rush in advance to June 30 has finally appeared after the SNEC 2017 tradeshow held in Shanghai. This week, spot prices for mono- and multi-si segments across the whole value chain has slightly rose, respectively, including polysilicon.

Price of polysilicon stopped declining and rebounded to an average of US$13.7 per kg, or a mainstream price quote of RMB 110 per kg. Nonetheless, polysilicon’s price is expected to witness another downturn starting from mid- to late-May due to demand cool down.

Multi-si wafer sector, which ultimately stopped its price decline since this year’s Lunar New Year, saw a moderate price rebound this week. A limited volume of super high efficiency multi-si wafers have been traded and the average price was US$0.593 per piece. As for high efficiency multi-si wafers, the price quote also rose by US$0.002 per piece and there is still room for it to increase in early May.

Price rise of multi-si solar cells was visible during this week. After SNEC 2017, both quotes of high-efficiency and standard multi-si solar cells increased by RMB 0.02 per watt, while quote of Taiwan-made high-efficiency multi-si solar cells enjoyed stronger price jump of approximately US$0.01 per watt. EnergyTrend expects that price of multi-si solar cells will continue this upward trend until early May. After this time point, the price trend may sustain until it starts to decrease.

In contrast, mono-si segments’ price trends, including module sector, were overall stable due to supply shortage of mono-si wafers. Price of mono-si PERC cells was the only exception with a quote increase rate of US$0.01 per watt.

280W mono-si PV modules’ price was almost the same with the prior week, while we have found that 290W modules’ quote has slightly increased by US$0.002 per watt.

Quote of multi-si modules has rebounded by RMB 0.02 per watt to an average price of US$0.361 per watt. EnergyTrend forecasts another wave of price increase before the demand boom for the June 30 installation rush has ended, yet the ratio could be limited.

(Analysis provided by Celeste Tsai, analyst at EnergyTrend)