Solar power developers worried over rise in panel prices
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’s 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 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.
“Globally, 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,” said Rohit Gadre, an associate at BloombergNEF.
Freight rates, too, have shot up 5-8 times due to a shortage of shipping containers, pushing up module prices.
