Solar Supply Chain Burned by Disappointing Demand, Oversupply

Electronics Design News (7/28, Deffree) – Massive oversupply of solar modules, combined with disappointing demand, has caused average inventories throughout the solar supply chain to soar by 64.3%, forcing major oversupply and price erosion, according to iSuppli. Further, iSuppli reported that average days of inventory among solar module and cell makers, polysilicon and wafer suppliers, and vertically integrated companies that provide all these items surged to more than 121 days in Q1, up from 74.2 days during the same period in 2008. ISuppli noted that some of the most-burned entities in the PV industry have been the fully integrated players, including REC, Yingli, and SolarWorld, which have operations in all three polysilicon, wafer, and cells nodes of the supply chain.