Interestinghttps://about.bnef.com/blog/solar-10-predictions-for-2022/?
2. Solar module prices will fall to 25 U.S. cents per Wattin 1H 2022, and 1-2 cents per Watt lower in 2H 2022
Polysilicon production has been the bottleneck in 2021. Combined with strong demand, it has pushed module prices as high as 27.8 U.S. cents per Watt for standard monocrystalline silicon, monofacial modules using 166mm cells. We expect 39% more polysilicon production in 2022 than in 2021, with total supply enough to make nearly 300GW of silicon solar products, thanks to new capacity ramping up and factory debottlenecking.
This will ease the supply crunch. Already, the silicon price has fallen back from $37/kg in October to $32/kg in the last month of 2021. We expect that to further decline to $20-25/kg in 2H 2022. Improved efficiency, and modules made of larger wafers with side length of 182mm and 210mm becoming a mainstream product, are estimated to allow another 1 U.S. cents/W reduction in module prices. We therefore expect a 11-15% module price drop to 23-24 U.S. cents/W in 2H 2022.
8. Solar manufacturing capacity will continue to grow, with new technologies joining the mix
Significant (>10GWannual capacity)factories for new cell technologies such as tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) and heterojunction will be built in 2022. There is already over 400GW of annual capacity to make the current standard passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) cell (>400GW by the end of 2021), which is approaching the efficiency limit of the current structure at around 24%.
Numerous plans have been announced for TOPCon and heterojunction production over the years, mainly by new entrants planning to enter the business with differentiated products, but they have not been economically competitive with mainstream products. New and significant plans by the current large cell and integrated module makers are likely to change that. Among the new technologies, TOPCon is likely to be a faster winner seeing as it is reputed to have better cost performance and is more compatible with existing cell production in terms of process, equipment and materials, which makes it easier to scale up compared with other technologies. PERC, however, will remain the mainstream product for another two to three years.