Prices for a solar-grade polycrystalline silicon wafers have risen to US$0.835-0.840 currently due to strong demand, and are likely to further rise to US$0.85-0.87 in November, according to industry sources.
In contrast, prices for monocrystalline models have continually dropped because demand in Europe and Japan, two main markets, has decreased due to depreciation of the Euro and Japanese Yen against the US dollar, the sources said. For example, prices for M2-size monocrystalline wafers have slipped to US0.93-0.94, the sources indicated.
Currently, prices for a M2-size monocrystalline wafers are about US$0.10 higher than for a polycrystalline model, the sources noted. As solar cells made from monocrystalline wafers have higher energy conversion rates than those made from polycrystalline models, if prices for polycrystalline wafers rise further and the price gap decreases to below US$0.10, demand for monocrystalline wafers will begin to replace that for polycrystalline models, the sources indicated.
China-based makers have total annual production capacity of over 40GWp for polycrystalline wafers and about 10GWp for monocrystalline wafers currently, while Taiwan-based makers have about 4GWp and 300-500MWp respectively, the sources said.