PVInsight reports strong price drop for monocrystalline products

During The Smarter E last week, there was a lot of speculation and some fresh numbers about how the prices for modules, cells, wafers and silicon will evolve.

As pv magazine learned, prices for multicrystalline PV products in particular, caved significantly. Today, however, PVInsight has provided an update in which it shows that the prices for monocrystalline products have now also fallen sharply, in the past few days.

Price erosion is particularly strong for monocrystalline wafers, which are manufactured both in China, and elsewhere. According to research by PVInsight, the spot market price in China for these products was between US$0.432 and $0.434 per piece – a decline of 11% and nearly 12%, respectively, within a week.

Spot market prices for monocrystalline PERC solar cells have also fallen in recent days. Here, prices dropped around 8.5% to $0.172 per watt, according to PVInsight. Concurrently, prices for other types of solar cells have continued to fall – by between 2% and 6%.

At the module level, PVInsight shows that multicrystalline products continue to experience greater pressure. The average price of multicrystalline solar modules, for example, continued to decline by nearly 3%, to $0.27 per watt, with prices ranging from $0.24 to $0.41 per watt.

The average spot market prices for monocrystalline solar modules, meanwhile, fell by almost 2% to $0.352 per watt, ranging from $0.31 to $0.55 per watt; and the prices for thin film modules and high efficiency polycrystalline modules are currently moving between the two ranges.

Polysilicon prices are being similarly affected. Average costs are now around $11.29 per kilogram, while the lowest spot market prices for polysilicon reported by PVInsight are $9.85 per kilogram.