New manufacturing capacity in the polysilicon wafer market has helped boost the production of solar panels at three major Chinese manufacturers.

Several new polysilicon production factories have come online, resulting in a major decline in the price of polysilicon wafers. Those wafers are the building blocks for solar panels, being pieced together into a complete module.

This is great news for the solar industry as a whole, for customers looking to buy panels in the next few months, and for fighting climate change worldwide.

Bloomberg reports:

Several big solar-panel makers are ramping up production in a boon to clean energy. A key reason: the collapse of material costs that had been elevated for more than a year.

Three leading Chinese module manufacturers are bumping up January output forecasts, according to Shanghai Metals Market, which didn’t identify its sources. Promising near-term demand is another factor driving the output boost.

The world is racing to fight climate change, but accessing solar panels has been a challenge in some markets including the US. A surge of cheap panels would help countries reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and potentially lower power prices.

Solar demand has been growing for several years, but manufacturers were hamstrung in 2021 and 2022 by a rare stretch of increasing material costs for polysilicon — a key material for most panels. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-05/big-solar-panel-manufacturers-boosting-production-as-costs-fall

You can read the full story at Bloomberg.com