Polysilicon price trending down to $50/kg due to high inventory level and low visibility of market demand

TAIWAN: Based on the latest survey conducted by EnergyTrend, the market demand is yet to pick up, therefore the inventory still remained at a high level. As a result, the polysilicon price has significantly dropped. The average spot price of polysilicon has decreased by over 10 percent, come to below $60/kg. Moreover, the average price of solar cell has decreased to below $0.95/Watt. Manufacturers indicated that the market’s confidence is as low as the financial meltdown in 2008.Source: EnergyTrend, Taiwan.

According to EnergyTrend’s survey, the polysilicon price has come to 52/kg at the lowest, and the average polysilicon price has quickly decreased by 12.71 percent, to $58.875. EnergyTrend indicated that the polysilicon manufacturers are barely able to survive the huge price pressure, and the closing price is approaching $50/kg. In addition, Si wafer manufacturers are also under price pressure. The average price of multi-Si wafer and mono-Si wafer has respectively fallen by 9.87 percent and 6.08 percent, to $2.42/piece and $2.8/piece.

Furthermore, the solar cell price has decreased to $0.85/Watt at the lowest, and the average price has slightly dropped by 0.84%, to $0.95/Watt. Compared with that of polysilicon and wafer, EnergyTrend believes that the slash in solar cell price has reached to the manufacturers’ maximum tolerance. Before the upstream players show obvious price responses, the cell price might only reflect a slight decrease.

Besides, due to low demand in the module market, the average price of module has continued to decrease by 3.27 percent, to $1.36/Watt. Also, the average price of thin film has decreased by 3.21 percent, to $1.055/Watt. Finally, the average price of PV inverter has fallen by 5.06 percent, to $0.244/Watt.

EnergyTrend believes that inventory turnover is still the key factor for the PV market demand recovery. Cumulative ready-for-sale inventory in Italy is around 3.5GW, and 1.5GW~2GW in other regions. On the other hand, inventory problems also exist in the polysilicon, wafer and solar cell fields. EnergyTrend estimates that it will take one to two months to digest the total inventory in stock as if all inventories were converted to equivalent cell capacity.

Apart from high inventory level, many countries have curtailed feed-in tariff policies, which resulted in a decreasing IRR ratio. Therefore, EnergyTrend believes that since many factors affected market demand and oversupply still remained, the market demand would not recover in the short run.