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The global PV market has encountered a freeze in demand as it enters the third quarter, and declining orders led to rising inventories for wafers, cells and modules. “Prices in different sectors of the supply chain have kept falling through July due to the lack of demand,” said Corrine Lin, assistant research manager of EnergyTrend, a division of TrendForce. “The cell prices in particular have reached their historical lows during this off season.” EnergyTrend expects the situation in the August market to turn for the worst, and demand will probably not pick up even by the end of the third quarter.
China’s PV market remains uncertain as the installation rush in the country comes to the end and the government has not released any detailed plans on domestic PV targets and related subsidies. Therefore, PV manufacturers in China and Taiwan will see sharp drops in incoming orders in late June. Going into the third quarter, there will be no policy pressure to generate installation rushes in major markets such as China, the U.S. and Europe, noted Corrin Lin, assistant research manager of EnergyTrend, a division of TrendForce. Power plant companies also expect further decline in module prices, so their demand during this period will be fairly cool. With the off season approaching in the third quarter, manufacturers that have expanded their capacities earlier this year will be under a lot of pressure to cut prices.
Members of the PV industry will be gathering in Shanghai next week for China’s largest solar energy trade show, SNEC 2016. The tradeshow will provide a venue for manufacturers across the PV supply chain to negotiate their orders in June. Therefore, the global PV market will not witness noticeable price fluctuations this month.
The sales of x-electric vehicles (xEV) in China reached a historic high of 300,000 units in 2015. Correspondingly, the market for xEV lithium batteries witnessed surging growth in the same period. In the fourth quarter, for instance, xEV batteries for vehicles models such as passenger cars and microcars took off. Strong demand in the xEV market has put pressure on the supply of cylindrical lithium cells for IT applications (e.g. notebook and tablet batteries).
Seasonality and the end of installation rush in China have weakened prices of multi-Si products, from wafers to cells and modules, said Corrine Lin, assistant research manager for EnergyTrend, a division of TrendForce. Polysilicon prices in China, on the other hand, have risen significantly as wafer manufacturers have been operating at full capacity and expanding capacities at the same time.