Predictive Analysis of Global Polysilicon Future Market

PHOTON Consulting's 2010 solar report released in early October 2010 pointed out that due to the surge in demand for photovoltaic solar cells, the polysilicon market has grown at an incredible rate in the past five years and is expected to continue to grow in the next few years. However, due to the strong dependency of market demand conditions on policies and macroeconomic environment, there are still many unstable factors in the future development of the polysilicon industry.

PHOTON's Silicon Industry Department stated that between 2005 and 2010, the global solar cell market experienced very strong and sustained growth. The compound average annual growth rate even exceeded 50%. It is expected that the profitability of polysilicon manufacturers in the future will be mainly affected by price fluctuations. Impact of supply and demand changes. The strong recovery after the economic recession drove the substantial increase in the installed capacity of solar cell components, resulting in tight supply of the polysilicon market.

According to the report, in the current policy and economic environment, the compound annual growth rate of polysilicon supply from 2010 to 2014 is expected to be 16%, and it will reach 290,000 tons in 2014. In order to further seize the polysilicon market and improve operational efficiency, large international companies led by major manufacturers such as Hemlock Semiconductor, OCI and Wacker Chemical have all invested heavily in expanding production capacity. In August 2010, OCI and South Korea Economic Development Group signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly spend US$8.4 billion to build a new production line in Gunsan, South Korea, to increase its polysilicon production capacity by more than three times; Hemlock Semiconductor is currently in Clark, Tennessee, USA Sri Lanka invested 1.2 billion U.S. dollars to build a polysilicon manufacturing plant; WACKER also invested 800 million euros in Germany to build a new solar polysilicon plant.

In addition, policy factors may also change the polysilicon supply expectations. The report predicts that unfavorable policy measures may limit the installed capacity of solar cells, which in turn will lead to the collapse of polysilicon prices and tight supply during 2013-2014. And if the photovoltaic industry can get government policy incentives, the supply of polysilicon will even grow at an annual rate of 43%, reaching nearly 500,000 tons by 2014.