Speed of inventory turnover still key factor of PV market development in 2H11

TAIWAN: According to EnergyTrend’s survey, the average price of solar cell has been closed to $1.0/Watt. Manufacturers indicated that since the uncertain factor in Europe has been faded away, the price quotation of solar cell has stayed at $1.0/Watt.Source: EnergyTrend, Taiwan.

On the other hand, since some manufacturers have slashed the wafer price in order to lower their inventories, the wafer price has come to $2.6/piece at the lowest, but the major close price is still at over $2.8/Piece. Besides, the module price stayed between $1.4/Watt-$1.5/Watt. However, some polysillicon manufacturers still set their price at over $70/kg, which can not meet the downstream manufacturers’ expectation.

According to latest survey, the price of polysilicon has decreased by 0.75 percent to 72.725/kg. EnergyTrend believes that since the uncertain factor in Italy has disappeared, the decrease has narrowed. However, manufacturers have still take a wait-and-see attitude toward the following development, and held back the price. Moreover, the price pressure also brings to Si-wafer manufacturers, and average price has decreased by 2.73 percent, to $2.89/piece. Besides, the mono-Si wafer has fallen by 0.99 percent, to $3.288/piece.

Furthermore, the lowest spot price of solar cell has still stayed at $0.9/Watt, but the average price has dropped by 2.22 percent, to $1.011/Watt. Due to weak module market demand, the average price has generally fallen by 2.42 percent, to $1.453/Watt. In terms of thin film, the average price has slightly decreased by 1.54 percent, to $1.151/Watt.

Although the Italian government has announced the latest subsidy policy, EnergyTrend indicates that the subsidy policy cover good news and bad news. The surplus is that the Italian government does not set a limitation on small system installation, and increase the specification to 1MW. The bad news is set a certain amount of subsidy on the large system. Besides, if modules, PV inverters, and system installation parts made by European manufacturers can be adopted, the corporation can receive 10 percent reward, which made non-European corporations to have a serious challenge in the European market.

On the other hand, due to high inventory in Europe, even the uncertain factor has disappeared, but EnergyTrend believes that whether the demand in 2H2011 can recover has to see the speed of inventory turnover in the European market between June and August.