Subsidies for major markets to decrease; prospects in 1Q12 looking up with impending subsidy cut

TAIWAN: According to EnergyTrend, the green energy division of TrendForce, Europe and China may further reduce the subsidies. With companies trying to take advantage of subsidies while they can, the prospects for the global solar market are looking up for 1Q12, and the spot prices are also on an upswing. However, the upward price trend may cause uncertainty to the market outlook in 2Q12, as a certain amount of orders have been advanced to 1Q12. The subsidy reduction in 2Q12 will render the companies conservative.

At present, European countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Greece, and Switzerland have announced their new subsidy policies. For example, Germany may reduce the subsidy by 12-24 percent, which will result in the same strong demand for 1Q12 as that for 11’Dec; the same goes for Greece and Switzerland. Although China is said to reduce its subsidy as well, due to the fact that the domestic demand in China is mainly supplied by the Chinese manufacturers, China’s subsidy reduction plays little part in the global market.Source: EnergyTrend, Taiwan.

As for this week’s spot prices, according to EnergyTrend’s research, currently lowest polysilicon price has increased to $27/kg, while the average price rose to $29.32/kg, a 4.85 percent increase. Si wafer has also seen a price increase, with the lowest multi-Si wafer price reaching $1.15/piece and the average price arriving at $1.189/piece, a 1.62 percent increase.

The mono-Si wafer average price increased slightly to $1.596/piece, an increase of 0.82 percent. EnergyTrend stated that the high-efficiency Si wafer products is now in an shortage, which jacks up related products’ prices. High-efficiency Si wafer’s ASP is now at $1.25/piece and the regular ones’ price is at $1.17/piece, a price gap of 6-8 percent.

As for solar cells, this week’s average price still showed a slight uptrend with average conclude transaction price at $0.517/Watt, a 0.19 percent increase. This week’s solar module price also continuously increased, with average price at $0.878/Watt, an increase of 3.05 percent. The Si module price continued to go up, so did the price of thin film module, with the average price increasing to $0.819/Watt, a 2.37 percent increase.