It's been Heard that the PV Industry Self-Discipline will be called officially again by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)

Polysilicon material

Near the end of the year, the upstream PV?industry chain polysilicon field set off a "反内卷/anti-rat race" trend. Tongwei, Daqo Energy recently announced that it will start high purity polysilicon part of the production line stage production maintenance.

At the same time, GCL technology plans to conduct production reduction maintenance work. It is worth noting that the three enterprises have not specified the resumption of production schedule, which is significantly different from the routine maintenance in previous years. The enterprises said that the subsequent resumption of production would be decided according to the market situation.

Polysilicon prices have continued to fall since May below the cash cost line.         

According to the latest data, the average transaction price of N-type compound material is 40,300 yuan/ton, the average price of N-type granular silicon is 37,000 yuan/ton, and the average price of P-type silicon is only 33,100 yuan/ton.

This is lower than the industry's lowest production cost range of 35,000-45,000 yuan/ton. At the same time, industry inventories remained at a high of 278,000 tons, equivalent to about 2-3 months of digestion.

The industry believes that silicon prices are close to the bottom, and the further downside space is limited. With the listing of polysilicon futures before the end of the year, its price discovery function is expected to inject a positive signal into the spot market.

In addition, the industry's self-discipline measures and policy support will also continue to improve the market supply and demand relationship.        

Wafers

According to the silicon industry data, China's wafer production capacity is expected to grow to 1,457 GW by 2025 and 890 GW. By the end of November 2024, the polysilicon capacity reached 2.648 million tons/year, up 26.10% YoY. The silicon wafer capacity was about 1200GW, up 25.84% YoY.

But on the price side, the silicon wafer market is weak, with prices continuing to fall in 2024.

Take the N-type 182mm silicon wafer as an example, its price decreased from 1.925 yuan/piece at the beginning of the year to 1.125 yuan/piece, a decline of 41.56%.

On the production side, the production of silicon wafers has continued to decline since the second quarter, but the inventory has been rapidly reduced since November, and the downstream demand has gradually recovered.         

The listing of polysilicon futures also provides silicon wafer companies with opportunities to manage costs through low hedging.

Solar cells

The solar cell?market is also facing severe challenges, with prices continuing to fall throughout the year.

With weak downstream demand, the solar cell?link has been in a serious loss state. In the past half a year, the gross profit performance of each link has been poor, among which the solar cell?profit performance is the weakest.

In terms of production trends, solar cell?production has declined significantly since the second quarter, but has rebounded slightly after October.

In terms of inventory, since November, solar cell?inventory has decreased significantly, indicating that the middle and lower reaches of the industry are accelerating adjustment.        

Conclusion

After the listing of polysilicon futures, the market sentiment is expected to pick up, which will provide more options for downstream enterprises in raw material management and risk hedging. In the short term, solar cell?prices may be boosted by sentiment, but in the long term still need to pay attention to the rebound of terminal component prices and industrial chain construction.

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