Latest solar price survey

TAIWAN: According to the weekly price survey conducted by EnergyTrend, the solar cell spot price showed extreme responses. In the upstream sector of the solar energy industry, the prices of poly silicon and wafer have remained about the same with a slight increase, while the prices of cell and module have reduced.

The survey shows that in the upstream sector of the solar industry, the price of poly silicon has increased by 0.51 percent, to $78.5/kg. In addition, the average price of Si wafer has remained the same as last week. The average price of poly silicon wafer has come to $3.72/piece. In terms of solar cell, the spot price has reduced to around $1.23/Watt this week, a decrease of 3.46 percent compared with that of last week. Moreover, the average price of module has dropped by 1.7 percent to around $1.62/Watt.

As for the contract price in March, most contract prices of poly silicon are set by quarterly, and have been set up as the price of the first quarter. Therefore, the price has stayed the same this month. In terms of silicon wafer price, although it shows an increasing trend, the magnitude has substantially reduced to 0.11~0.13 percent. In terms of solar cell and module, the contract price of module stayed at $1.67/Watt, while the price of solar cell has slightly increased by 0.64 percent, to $1.26/Watt.

Due to unsettled changes of Italian solar policy, with the guideline of the new policy having not come out, not only the Italian market demand momentum but also the price trend of solar cell and module are obviously affected. In the short run, wafer manufacturers might be probably under the pressure of price reduction demanded by clients.

On the other hand, although Japan earthquake has caused a tragic disaster, the solar cell production is primarily located in the western Japan. However, because financial support for domestic reconstruction may have crowd-out effect on the solar market, EnergyTrend is concerned about an obvious decrease in Japanese market demand. Plus, the European market and the Japanese markets turned bear, EnergyTrend believes that the worldwide solar energy demand in the second quarter of 2011 might be lower than expected.