SMM, Oct 12: Before the National Day, the PV market showed mixed trends. Polysilicon held prices firm; PV wafer prices softened under inventory pressure; some cell models saw slight price recovery due to procurement; module prices continued to weaken due to several large tenders...
Domestic Photovoltaic Price Trends
During the National Day holiday, there were a few representative transactions. October is crucial for year-end PV installations. How will the market evolve? For polysilicon, due to concentrated orders in mid-to-late September, new orders during the holiday were relatively few, mostly for small deliveries. Polysilicon prices showed some divergence, with resistance above 42 yuan/kg, and significant inventory accumulation. Prices around 40 yuan/kg were more acceptable, with some companies even facing "urgent delivery" requests. Companies are closely monitoring Tongwei's maintenance progress in Sichuan during the dry season. According to SMM, several production lines in Leshan may undergo maintenance in November, but a full shutdown seems unlikely, potentially affecting future polysilicon supply. For PV wafers, there were indeed some price fluctuations during the holiday. Some 210RN low-price orders appeared, and prices of older size wafers dropped to around 1.21 yuan/piece. The price center for 183mm wafers also shifted to 1.06 yuan/piece. SMM reports that domestic wafer inventory remains around 5 billion pieces, creating some pressure to offload stock.
PV wafer weekly inventory (GW)
In October, domestic wafer supply is expected to be 47.2 GW, compared to cell production of 49 GW, indicating a slight supply gap, insufficient to deplete current inventory. For cells, prices slightly increased before the holiday due to market sentiment and downstream purchases, reaching 0.275 yuan/w. However, around the holiday, some orders were at 0.27 yuan/w, partly due to inventory pressure and cost pressure from previous module price cuts. In October, there was a noticeable supply gap for cells, which might support prices, but limited by insufficient market sentiment and confidence, price changes might be limited.
For the final module segment, SMM reports no significant changes during the holiday. Before the holiday, several state-owned enterprises conducted tenders, with bidding prices as low as 0.6 yuan/w. Market confidence was generally low, and October domestic module production is expected to recover to around 53 GW, but lower than previous peak seasons.
