Solar Products to see an increase in their pricing

Solar product prices which have decreased by an average of 10-15% in the last one year, may see a slight increase going into the year end as demand increases from China, Japan and USA. Even India is becoming a major source of demand with 10 GW of solar tenders in the pipeline over the next one year. This is already causing a shortage in the supply chain with Taiwanese cell producers being booked out for August and slightly increasing prices for September.

Even poly prices are expected to increase a bit as demand ramps up rapidly. The solar industry has been a strange one for manufacturers. Despite demand growing by almost 40% plus CAGR since 2008, manufacturers have been forced to fight price wars with each other. Many major solar players are still making losses on the gross margin level due to extremely low prices.

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The overcapacity in the industry has not gone away, as China keeps even the zombie companies running to avoid unemployment. China has kept alive lots of loss making companies in the employment intensive textile, steel, cement and solar industry. This has been done to prevent mass unrest. Local governments and banks have kept extending and pretending. Even bankrupt companies such as LDK and Suntech have seen their factories taken over by other companies and their capacity has not gone away.

However I think a rationalization will come, as even the Chinese government do not have infinite capacity to keep these zombie factories running. They also do not have the money to upgrade equipment and prevent obsolescence. It will ultimately be a few strong solar companies that will survive this environment of overcapacity.