Chinese PV Industry Brief: Daqo reports polysilicon average selling price of $32.76/kg in Q1

Polysilicon manufacturer Daqo reported the sale of 38,839 MT of polysilicon at an average selling price of $32.76/kg in the first quarter of the year, with quarterly turnover coming in at $1.28 billion. In the same period of 2021, the company sold 21,471 MT and revenue totaled $256.1 million. Net profit increased considerably from $83.2 million in the first quarter of 2021 to $535.8 million in the latest quarter. “We are very pleased to report exceptional results for the first quarter of 2022, the best-ever in the company’s history,” said Daqo CEO Longgen Zhang. “Last December, we began production at our new 35,000 MT phase 4B polysilicon expansion project. Production ramp up was successful throughout the first quarter.” Looking forward, Daqo said it expected to produce between 32,000 MT to 34,000 MT of polysilicon in the second quarter of 2022 and approximately 120,000 MT to 125,000 MT of polysilicon in the full year of 2022. “We believe the polysilicon sector will remain one of the most profitable sectors in the solar PV value chain, as polysilicon will continue to be in short supply and determine the actual pace and total volume of global installations,” the company stated.

Inverter manufacturer Sungrow released its annual financial report on Tuesday, which states the company suffered a significant drop in profits despite increased sales. The company achieved revenue of CNY 24 billion ($3.77 billion), with a YoY increase of 25.15%. Net profit, meanwhile, dropped 19% YoY to CNY 1.58 billion. Sungrow said shipments of its major inverter products reached 47 GW, which it claims accounted for a market share of over 30% globally. Within the total, 18 GW was for the Chinese domestic market and 29 GW for external markets. In an online Q&A with investors and shareholders, Sungrow provided three reasons for the profit decline in 2021. The first was the PV plant business in Vietnam, which suffered delays to due to COVID-19 in 2021. The second was the cancellation of a solar project in Myanmar due to the military coup. And the last was the delay of energy storage projects in overseas markets due to the COVID crisis.

Polysilicon manufacturer GCL-Poly announced on Tuesday that it changed its name to GCL Technology Holdings Limited, effective April 1, 2022. The new Cayman Islands-based company will continue to be listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The company also announced a strategic cooperation with Zhonghuan Semiconductor for a new polysilicon manufacturing facility in Inner Mongolia. The new facility will be located in Hohhot and will have an annual capacity of 100,000 metric tons of annual capacity, The planned investment is around CNY 9 billion ($1.4 billion). GCL Technology will take a 60% share of the joint venture and TCL together with Zhonghuan will take another 40% share.

Hong Kong-based IDG Energy Investment Ltd on Tuesday revealed more details of its move into “advanced solar manufacturing” as it announced that the first customer for its single wafer wet processing equipment would receive the production equipment in the final quarters of this year and next year. They will be manufactured at a fab dedicated to solar cell and semiconductor single wafer clean equipment production lines in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, which IDG said would be open by July. An update to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange stated: “The products which the company currently contemplates include various types of equipment which can clean wafers with sizes of 6 inches, 8 inches, and 12 inches. The application of the products covers wafer back side thinning, back side clean[ing], bulk chemical[s], solvent clean[ing], and combo configurations.”

Module manufacturer Solargiga on Tuesday published unaudited first-quarter figures indicating a  revenue increase of 5.7% on the same period of last year, from CNY 1.05 billion ($164 million) to CNY 1.1 billion. The volume of shipments to external customers, however, fell on the same measure, from 1.49 GW worth of solar ingots, wafers, and modules in the January-to-March period last year, to 1.33 GW this year.

Of the total CNY 8.71 billion ($1.34 billion) in revenue generated by glass manufacturer Flat Glass last year, CNY 7.12 billion came from the company’s solar panel glass operation, according to the company's 2021 annual report published on Monday. That PV glass revenue figure marked a rise of 36% from the CNY 5.23 billion recorded in 2020. The solar panel unit banked a gross profit of CNY 2.54 billion, even as the PV glass gross profit margin decreased from 44.91% in 2020 to 35.7% as prices fell from the second quarter of last year onwards and freight and raw material costs rose. Flat Glass posted a net profit of CNY 2.12 billion in 2021 and is continuing to expand its production capacity with two phases of a production line project under way in Anhui and plans for four PV glass furnaces in Nantong, in Jiangsu Province, which will have a total daily melting capacity of 1,200 metric tons. The company said it restarted a 600-ton furnace in Jiaxing, Jiangsu, in the first quarter of this year, following cold repairs.

Solar developer and investor C Smarter Energy on Monday said it had received notice from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong that trading in its stock cannot be resumed until the winding up petition issued against the company by investor Nine United is withdrawn or dismissed. Trading in the shares has been suspended since April 1 last year and Nine United lodged its petition in December in relation to $4.52 million and HKD 5.51 million ($702,000) it claims it is owed.