Supply and demand analysis of photovoltaic glass and EVA in 2020 Q4

and future

Highlight:

Glass :The price of photovoltaic glass has practically risen by 108% from

Q3-Q4, increased to 50 Yuan（$7.52）/ m² from 24 Yuan / m²（$3.6）in

3 months.

EVA: Simultaneously, EVA’s price appears a growth of 25% in recent weeks,

which causing the price of module to increase by 0.022 Yuan /W.

According the news from China media, photovoltaic glass become

profiteering busines. Its price reaches to 50 RMB/ m² in few days ago,

3.2mm glass increases from 42 Yuan / m² to 50 Yuan（$7.52）/ m², and

brings 166 module’s price rising by 0.05 Yuan/W, and 210 module’s price

rising by 0.04 Yuan/W. At the same time, the cost of EVA accounted for

5.25% of the cost of module has risen by 25%, results in an increase in

module price (The current module price is about 1.7 Yuan/ W) about

1.31% (0.022 Yuan /W).

Why the prices of glass and EVA increase?

A photovoltaic analyst told reporters: “the 2020 Q4 glass production

capacity is nearly 14.5-15GW/month, but the actual output ratio may be

only 70%, which means the total Q4 output is about 30GW, compared

with demand of the 37GW in Q4, the Q4 glass shortage is around 7GW.

Unfortunately, the production of 7GW cannot be done anyway.”

The shortage of 7GW is mainly due to insufficient supply. Different

module sizes are required different production processing, and

processing equipment are insufficient to satisfy this need, which result in

the glass factories ‘s production capacity difficult to delivery.

Glass companies always have a good profit, but after previous price

increase of silicon materials, they start to raise their prices for extra

profits. Moreover, glass companies try to let the government changing the

limit production capacity policy through this market behaviour while China

Ministry of Industry always hold a view that supply of glass is under

overcapacity. So, the policy is also one of reason behind glass price

increase.

It is estimated that by 2021, tightly balanced state of glass supply will

continue, while supply is about 120GW in monofacial modules and 50GW

in bifacial modules.

For EVA, the low supply of raw material let to an increase in price, and

the shortage is about 3GW. From the perspective of next year's EVA

production capacity, it can satisfy next year’s demand. The POE

upstream raw materials widely used in bifacial modules, are currently in

short supply and are only supplied from Dow and Mitsui. But the use of

EPE models such as EVA-POE-EVA can reduce the need of POE

materials in the future.

We can highlight the price increase of photovoltaic glass is different from

the that of silicon materials and silicon wafers. Under the insufficient

production capacity of glass, glass companies have been controlling the

prices upward for extra profit but also let to government to lifting the ban

of production capacity expansion. This harmful market behaviour to the

module will continue until government take into account the actual

situation of the market. With all the prices of silicon materials,

components and battery rising, it is very hard for module companies

making production capacity to delivery in Q4 and future.