This week’s edition of PV Price Watch, available exclusively to PV Tech Premium subscribers, analyses what the solar industry’s polysilicon price ceiling is currently and where it could decline to into next year. Exclusive to PV Tech Premium users.
The solar polysilicon sector is experiencing a changing of the guard, and all four of the top manufacturers will be Chinese next year, research firm Bernreuter Research has predicted.
According to Johannes Bernreuter, head of Bernreuter Research the supply of polysilicon for the PV industry will continue to be constrained in 2021, while significant overcapacity is looming in 2022 and possibly intensify in 2023.
According to Bernreuter Research, polysilicon consumption for the production of solar wafers is set to impact the supply-side as the PV industry adopts diamond wire technologies that significantly lower kerf loss.
Since Wacker Chemie opened its new 20,000MT polysilicon plant in Charleston, Tennessee in 2016, there was a good chance that the German-headquartered chemicals firm could overtake incumbent market leader, GCL-Poly.
According to polysilicon market specialist, Bernreuter Research recent polysilicon import levels into China surged between October and November 2016, while ASP’s also recovered, a trend seen the year before and ahead of China installing a record 22GW of solar in the first half of 2016.
Specialist polysilicon market research firm, Bernreuter Research has warned of continued overcapacity that will force pricing down below many producers' cash cost levels and threatens the existence of high-cost producers in 2018.
