While there is no shortage of leading indicators in the PV industry that can be used to predict future trends in manufacturing and across the various companies involved in this space, one of the most pertinent ones relates to capital expenditure (or capex).
Yesterday, we exclusively revealed the top-10 solar cell producers for 2016. In the second part of our top-10 series, we can now reveal for the first time the top-10 module suppliers to the solar industry for 2016.
There are many key metrics worth listing at the end of each year in the solar industry. In terms of the upstream/manufacturing side, two jump out as leading indicators for the year ahead.
The first is to rank the top-10 producers of the solar cells during the year.
PV Tech can reveal the preliminary Top 5 solar module manufacturers in 2016, based as usual on final shipment guidance from third quarter financial results.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar reported lower third quarter total shipments as the slowdown in the domestic China market hit. As a result full year shipment guidance was also lowered.
JinkoSolar, JA Solar, Risen Energy, Wuxi Suntech and Sumec (Phono Solar) have been withdrawn from the EU’s Minimum Import Price (MIP) undertaking by the European Commission.
PV Tech’s preliminary analysis of global PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in October 2016, reflect the continued reaction to the rapid decent into overcapacity at the beginning of the second half of the year.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, JA Solar has agreed to settle a long-term ‘take or pay’ contract for the purchase of polysilicon from US-based polysilicon producer Hemlock Semiconductor.
This blog contains the concluding part of my Tales from Taiwan feature, with the first blog - Tales from Taiwan Part 1: more capacity comes online, but not in Taiwan - appearing on PV-Tech earlier this week.
