cell prices

Vikram V, vice president and co-group head of corporate ratings at Indian investment information and credit rating agency ICRA Ltd, speaks to pv magazine about falling solar cell and module prices, the impact on Indian pv manufacturers, and the way forward.

China’s president has detailed plans to accelerate the planning and construction of large-scale wind and PV projects in desert areas, while Wuxi Shanghai announced new granular silicon and nano-silicon production capacity expansions.

The sky is the limit. Fortunately, this expression does not apply to current prices for PV panels, which have recently declined, following a continuous rise since the beginning of the year. Whether this situation holds, or whether prices drop further in the coming months is hard to say at the moment, writes Martin Schachinger of pvXchange. Polysilicon prices and thus wafer and cell prices could be in for a slight decline. However, a decisive movement in module prices in general is unlikely before the fourth quarter.

Solar manufacturers Longi and Tongwei have frozen next month’s prices.

Plus, panel maker Risen began construction of a 15 GW cell and module factory in Yiwu, in the central Zhejiang province of eastern China.

The latest figures show the solar policy vacuum, and related dearth of demand in China earlier this year accelerated price reductions for cell makers. Although prices are expected to rebound in line with renewed thirst for solar in China, cell makers such as Tongwei are feeling the pain.

“Significant” price movements in solar PV cells has been observed this week, in reaction to India’s safeguard duties, and the impending MIP decision, says EnergyTrend. Module, wafer and polysilicon prices, however, remain stable. In contrast, prices for li-ion batteries are set to increase by as much as 15% in Q3.