[SMM PV News] Japan Adds Up to 6 GW Solar in 2025

According to SMM, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Taxation Administration issued an announcement on adjusting the consumption tax policy for some batteries, under which a 2% consumption tax will be levied on solar cells (PV cells) effective April 1, 2027, and a 4% consumption tax will be levied on solar cells effective April 1, 2028. It is expected that China's solar cells will subsequently be affected by the tax policy. As solar cell enterprises are currently operating at a loss, the actual tax cost will be determined through bargaining between upstream and downstream enterprises.

Germany’s latest auction for rooftop and noise-barrier solar installations, held on June 1, 2026, remained undersubscribed. The Federal Network Agency offered 296MW of capacity and received 125 bids totaling 238MW. After excluding 17 bids, it awarded 108 projects with a combined capacity of 208.57MW. Although both bid volume and awarded capacity increased from the previous February round, they remained below the tendered volume. Winning projects were mainly located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse. Awarded prices ranged from EUR 0.0084/kWh to EUR 0.10/kWh, with the weighted average price rising to EUR 0.0972/kWh.

According to SMM survey, this week, the transaction price of PV-grade EVA in the market edged up to around 9,700 yuan/mt. Individual traders quoted prices above 10,000 yuan, but the overall market transactions were mainly small orders for rigid demand, and whether high-priced sources actually translate into real orders remained disputed in the market. Coupled with the recent sustained uptrend in upstream ethylene prices, major petrochemical plants' weekly settlement prices are expected to be slightly raised next week in line with market conditions. At month-end, a new round of monthly price negotiations between film factories and module factories is about to commence. Next week's EVA price trend and upside space are expected to serve as the core guide for this round of film pricing; overall, the market sentiment driven by this round of EVA price hikes was far less than that in the March rally.