Losses, pricing reform in focus as Shanghai hosts world's largest solar conference
Most of the world's solar farms are powered by cells and modules made in China, but the country's top producers are facing billions of dollars in losses as breakneck competition has pushed prices below cost level.
Producers are trimming back production in response, just as they also face uncertainty about the outlook for demand due to policy changes on solar power project investment.
Participants at the annual SNEC PV+ Photovoltaic Power Conference and Exhibition - which runs until Friday and is expected to draw half a million people from around the world - will be watching speeches from executives at top manufacturers like Trina Solar (688599.SS), opens new tab and Longi Green Energy (601012.SS), opens new tab for what comes next.
Global output of solar panels dropped 7% in May from the previous month and will fall by another 4-5% in June, according to industry research outlet Shanghai Metals Market.
But that may be a drop in the ocean as production capacity in China alone has reached more than twice the level of global demand in recent years.
Last year, solar manufacturing heads called for help from the Chinese government, which subsequently introduced limited measures such as voluntary investment guidelines for solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing projects in an effort to rein in overcapacity.
Still, China solar module prices as of the end of May were down nearly 30% from a year earlier, according to the OPIS assessment for advanced TOPCon modules.
Complicating matters is uncertainty about the demand outlook for cells and modules as Beijing is scaling back subsidies for renewable energy projects after the boom in solar and wind power installations.
New solar plants commissioned after June 1 will have to sell their power into the market instead of receiving a guaranteed rate benchmarked to the price of coal.
The industry is still waiting for most of China's provincial governments to explain how their power auctions will work, and whether generators will receive a price backstop, known as a contract for difference.
Officials in renewables-rich Inner Mongolia decided not to offer any price guarantee for new renewables built in the province's eastern grid, according to a report from industry website BJX.com citing official documents.
"In my view, this is like the provincial government saying: 'We don't need any more renewables this year,'" said David Fishman, principal at Hong Kong-based the Lantau Group, an energy-focused consultancy, of the plan in a social media post on May 30.
"'We don't care if anyone builds a single new wind or solar farm this year... If you still want to build, you'll have to find your own customers - don't come looking for me to derisk your project!'"
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