Chinese PV Industry Brief: Growatt raises inverter, battery prices by up to 10%

Growatt said it will raise prices for string inverters, hybrid and storage inverters, commercial and industrial (C&I) storage cabinets, and residential storage systems by around 5% to 10% from Oct. 8. The company attributed the adjustment to higher raw-material costs, tighter supplies of some core components and rising manufacturing expenses. Sungrow had already implemented price increases of around 5% to 15% for several categories of solar inverters from Sept. 20.

China South-to-North Water Diversion Group finalized its 2026-27 module framework procurement this week, covering 1.3 GW of products. The tender includes 1 GW of TOPCon modules at an average awarded price of around CNY 0.72 ($0.10)/W and 300 MW of back-contact (BC) modules at about CNY 0.778/W. Longi, Aiko Solar and GCL System Integration were among the winners of the BC lot. The roughly CNY 0.058/W difference gives BC modules an average premium of about 8.1% over TOPCon products under the same procurement framework.

Longi Leye Photovoltaic Technology, a core cell and module subsidiary of Longi, completed a capital increase this week as part of a previously announced CNY 2.4 billion (US$353 million) market-oriented debt-to-equity swap. Its registered capital increased from CNY 3.6 billion to around CNY 4.11 billion, with bank-affiliated financial asset investment companies linked to China Merchants Bank and China CITIC Bank, as well as a fund backed by Shaanxi Financial Asset Management, joining as new shareholders. The transaction gives the manufacturer an additional financing channel to reduce leverage and introduce longer-term capital.

A 600 MW solar desertification-control project in Yecheng county, Xinjiang, has returned to tender after the original engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) winner failed to sign the contract within the required period and lost the award. The project has approximately 720 MWp of DC-side capacity and includes 60 MW/120 MWh of battery storage. The previous EPC contract was valued at around CNY 1.828 billion ($269 million). The retendering comes amid growing scrutiny of contractor capability, commercial terms and project delivery risks following years of intense price competition in China’s renewable energy sector.

PV ribbon manufacturer YourBest New-type Materials said this week that it will terminate a planned 20,000-ton-per-year expansion project at its Anhui manufacturing base. The project had originally been allocated about CNY 357 million ($52.5 million) in proceeds, of which roughly CNY 183 million, or 51.3%, had been invested by mid-September. The remaining approximately CNY 185 million will be permanently redirected to working capital. The company cited temporary supply-demand imbalances across the solar value chain, pressure on PV ribbon profitability and uncertainty stemming from rapid changes in solar cell technologies.

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