Anza highlights underlying uncertainty in ‘State of the Market’ report
In its first quarter State of the Market report, solar and battery data platform Anza says that this year opened with general price stability for solar. But that calm surface masks a rapidly changing market, according to the report.
Pricing levels took a small dip shortly before the start of the year, despite still sitting higher than most of 2025. But the overall median pricing of the last year saw a nearly 10% increase, with most of that centered around “major trade policy shifts” like the April 2025 tariff spike and the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in Q3.
“Buyers are proactively maneuvering around a complex web of policy shifts and escalating IP risks—a trend punctuated by recent market developments, including the ITC officially launching an investigation into First Solar’s Section 337 patent infringement complaint,” the report says.
Module technology also saw major changes, but with much less of the calm pretense of the overall market. While the market looked “broadly normal” last November, the report says the pricing dynamics between Mono PERC (Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell) and TOPCon (Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact) have since shifted dramatically.
“Mono PERC pricing accelerated sharply, climbing 20% in three months,” the report states. “For the first time outside of a brief anomaly during last summer’s Safe Harbor rush, Mono PERC is now more expensive than TOPCon on the Anza platform, at a $0.05/W median premium.”
Driven by “intense demand” for domestic Mono PERC modules in a race to meet the ITC Safe Harbor deadline, the module market has been thrown into disarray. But the differences there aren’t nearly as stark as the changes on an international level.
Around the pricing world
The international solar market is “splitting in two,” the data firm says. On one hand, there’s the domestic American solar system marketplace, where prices are going up. But for internationally aligned products, the market data shows a relative flattening of prices.
The main driver for this, the company says, is policy-related pressure on American solar developers.
“This acceleration is driven by intense competition for the limited purely domestic supply as domestic content demand grows—the same dynamic that pulled the overall Mono PERC medians higher, as discussed above,” the report says. “U.S. assembly capacity continues to serve as the foundation for Domestic Content Lite strategies that blend domestic BOM components to reach the domestic content bonus credit threshold.”
But for buyers trying to navigate the ITC, the first quarter of this year brought with it, “critical clarity and expanding options.” Ensuring baseline FEOC compliance and securing the right qualifying supply have created a pathway to maximize value, the report says.
“Fortunately, the pool of purely domestic supply is growing,” the report states. “New suppliers bringing their manufacturing to the U.S. have slowed considerably since many have already set up shop in the last 2 years. We expect 3 more cell manufacturers to begin delivery of their U.S. made cells starting by the end of 2026, bringing the total to 15.”
Energy storage systems also saw a dip for the beginning of the year, continuing the price softening trend that the market saw in 2025. Specifically, capital expenditures for 200MW, four-hour systems saw a 20.9% decline from May 2025 to February 2026.
“Self-integrated pricing for utility-scale systems is now at $145/kWh, down 5.8% from November’s $154/kWh and approximately 18.1% from the May peak of $177/kWh,” the report says. “The drivers likely include continued normalization of raw material costs, market overcapacity, and ongoing supply chain dynamics — though the relative contribution of each factor is difficult to isolate precisely.”
The report says that Q1 2026 will likely go down as the quarter when policy changes regarding renewable energy “stopped being hypothetical and started showing up in prices.” But looking ahead, the solar market is likely to be defined by the Section 232 polysilicon determination, due in late June, and the ITC’s handling of the Section 337 petition for TOPCon.
“Both have the potential to create further price dislocations,” the report states. “The ability to quickly model alternatives — domestic versus international, PERC versus TOPCon, FEOC-compliant versus non-compliant — is increasingly the difference between projects that pencil and projects that don’t.”
