India must scale up investment in the large-scale domestic manufacture of upstream PV products to avoid the risk of logistics and commodity price fluctuations posed by its current high levels of solar imports, new research has suggested.
China is expected to add 83 – 99GW of PV capacity every year from 2022 to 2025, while Europe is now its largest export market for solar products, according to a China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) report on the outlook for the PV industry over the next few years.
Solar manufacturer LONGi Solar has increased prices for its range of PV wafers, sending them to four-month highs amidst ongoing spikes in the polysilicon price.
US solar installer SunPower’s backlog has reached its highest ever level, but the firm said its Q4 earnings were hit by a supplier quality charge as well as installation delays because of COVID and poor weather.
Inverter manufacturer SolarEdge is increasing shipments to the US from a new production plant in Mexico as it looks to save on freight costs and reduce the impact of tariffs on imports.
Solar Module Super League (SMSL) member JA Solar is again aggressively expanding its manufacturing capacity, unveiling a new RMB3.5 billion (US$552 million) investment programme for new facilities.
The Indian government’s budget announcement on Monday (1 February) is set to be a “game-changer” for domestic manufacturing following the imposition of a Basic Customs Duty (BCD) of 25% on solar PV cells and of 40% on solar PV modules from April this year.
In this latest edition of PV Price Watch, Liam Stoker plots recent industry price forecasts for polysilicon throughout 2022 and explores the contributing factors to that normalisation.
