With 85-90% of the solar panels and modules used in India imported from China, an increase in prices has worried developers who have won projects that are yet to be commissioned. They fear their returns might take a hit since tariffs for the power they will sell have already been fixed.<\/p>\n
Module prices started increasing in mid-2020 because of a supply disruption caused by floods in China\u2019s southeast province, which led to the temporary closure of Tongwei Solar, a major polysilicon-producing company. An explosion took place at GCL Poly, another large polysilicon-producing company, which also hit supplies.<\/p>\n
Prices stabilised after a while, but they started increasing in the last quarter of 2020 on high demand for bifacial modules worldwide. Bifacial modules produce solar power from both sides of the panel and while they are more efficient and provide higher capacity utilisation, they also require more glass than multi or mono modules.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlobally, the increased use of bifacial modules and the switch to larger panels caused a bottleneck in effective glass-processing capacity in the fourth quarter of 2020,\u201d said Rohit Gadre, an associate at BloombergNEF.<\/p>\n
Freight rates, too, have shot up 5-8 times due to a shortage of shipping containers, pushing up module prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cModules make up 45-55% of project capex. In a highly competitive market like India, independent power producers have thin margins, which will be further squeezed by even a small rise in module prices,\u201d Gadre said.<\/p>\n
The average landed price of modules imported into India increased to $0.20\/W in December 2020 from $0.18\/W in September, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now have diversified suppliers. There are three or four players in the module market right now who are consolidating their positions. We are working with mid-size suppliers where we have slightly more bargaining power,\u201d said Rajat Seksaria, CEO of Acme Solar, the largest solar developer in India.<\/p>\n
He also said the company is diversifying its portfolio. \u201cWe are buying different kinds of modules \u2013 bifacial, mono-facial and poly. Between the three technologies, some price hedging can be expected,\u201d Seksaria said.<\/p>\n
Another solar developer said his company has turned to Indian module makers. \u201cI don\u2019t know whether this is a trend but we are having more conversations with Indian manufacturers because of the recent price increase,\u201d the person said, requesting anonymity.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we are just about managing it, but if prices go up, it will definitely have an impact on existing projects as well as on the two-rupee (per unit) projects,\u201d Seksaria said.<\/p>\n
Solar tariffs reached a record-low of Rs 1.99 per unit last year. Developers typically procure modules four to six months ahead of commissioning a project, but the recent increases have delayed purchases.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe may start purchasing from around May or June this year. I would have ideally purchased modules by February or March,\u201d he said. Developers expect prices to stabilise again. \u201cYes, we believe they will stabilise soon,\u201d Seksaria said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBloombergNEF expects the (glass) shortage to ease in 1H 2021,\u201d Gadre said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With 85-90% of the solar panels and modules used in India imported from China, an increase in prices has worried developers who have won projects that are yet to be commissioned. They fear their returns might take a hit since tariffs for the power they will sell have already been fixed. Module prices started increasing in mid-2020 because of a supply disruption caused by floods in China\u2019s southeast province, which led to the temporary closure of Tongwei Solar, a major polysilicon-producing company. An explosion took place at GCL Poly, another large polysilicon-producing company, which also hit supplies. Prices stabilised after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-399769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-power"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}