CEA forecasts significant price declines for solar modules

Clean Energy Associates (CEA), a consulting firm specializing in the solar and battery industry and based in Denver (U.S. state of Colorado) and Shanghai, forecasts a decline of around 15 percent in sales prices of solar modules from Chinese production for the period between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the fourth quarter of 2023. Accordingly, modules from Southeast Asia will remain at a higher level in absolute terms and will also decline by a much smaller amount in relative terms, namely by only six percent.
In the latest edition of its quarterly updated report, CEA – in line with other analysts – cites the rapid increase in polysilicon production capacity as the main reason for this forecast. The tripling of silicon production capacity expected between 2022 and 2024 is thus the factor with »the most immediate market impact«. Nevertheless, CEA expects significant further capacity expansion in 2025 and 2026, which could reach about 1.5 terawatts in 2026, four times the current level.
CEA also sees production capacity growth at the other levels of the value chain, i.e. for ingots and wafers, cells and modules, even faster than the equally rapid increase in global demand, which is estimated at well over 400 gigawatts by 2027. China remains the focus of the global industry, according to the report, but »strong non-China cell and module growth plans, particularly in Southeast Asia, India and the United States« are also a key factor in the overall forecast.
China is also expected to remain the world's largest market and to be the first country to reach the threshold of 100 gigawatts of annual PV additions. CEA sees the EU as the second-largest market, with »upside potential« for this forecast due to plans to reduce dependence on natural gas imports. The analysts see the USA as the third largest market.
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