As 2024 concludes, leading solar manufacturer LONGi forecasts that it will post a loss of between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion for the year – not atypical for Chinese solar manufacturers. This reflects the fact that they are producing below cost, with polysilicon and wafer prices down over 35% and 45% respectively, while cell and module prices are down over 25%. Only in protected markets like the US and India is the picture more optimistic for investments into solar manufacturing. In China, it’s been set in stone that overcapacity would lead to consolidation, with growing demand far outstripped by manufacturing expansions (for example, there’s now almost 3 million tons of polysilicon production capacity, but 1.35 million tons would be needed…