context: PRC solar has spent a year under instruction to stop selling below cost, without an agreed figure for what cost is. An October 2025 announcement on disorderly price competition pushed at pricing conduct; mandatory module safety and nameplate standards released in May, and three energy consumption standards in July, worked on product quality and market entry. Price itself was left to self-discipline pledges because no comparable cost figure existed. The new model carries a recommended-standard label, but it was drafted under state market regulator and industry ministry guidance, and the price bureau reportedly moved within days to press its implementation. Its formal status may therefore understate its practical importance. What remains untested is whether an auditable cost benchmark can shift behaviour when excess capacity continues to drive prices below sustainable levels.
CPIA (China Photovoltaic Industry Association) released 'General principles of cost accounting models for the photovoltaic industry' on 27 Jul 2026, drafted under guidance from SAMR (State Administration for Market Regulation) and MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology).
Covering polysilicon, wafer, cell and module making, it requires firms to
- split cash cost, production cost and full cost, adding depreciation then management, selling and finance expenses in stages
- keep idle-capacity depreciation in full cost through period expenses, barring firms from stripping it out
- carry each upstream stage's full cost into the next, blocking internal transfer prices that understate downstream cost
- justify internal settlement prices deviating more than 20 percent from CPIA reference values, with agreements, third-party quotations or external sales records
- build industry benchmarks from output-weighted firm costs, modelled separately by technology route
- production cost and full cost are defined to match manufacturing cost and production cost in the state's 1999 regulation 'Provisions on prevention of underpriced dumping'
SAMR Price Supervision, Inspection and Anti-Unfair Competition Bureau will convene CPIA and solar firms on 31 July to press implementation and curb irrational competition, reports Cailian Press, citing unnamed industrial source.
The new model ends firms defining cost on their own terms and gives tender committees an operational benchmark for applying the Tendering and Bidding Law requirement to reject bids below cost, argues Yan Dazhou 严大洲 National Engineering Research Centre for Silicon-Based Material Preparation Technology director.
A common method is needed to distinguish cost advantages created by technology and management from loss-making strategies used to gain market share, says Liu Yiyang 刘译阳 China Photovoltaic Industry Association executive secretary-general. Prices persistently detached from actual cost weaken firms’ capacity to invest and continue operating, while distorting competition based on quality, innovation and long-term value.
Extending low-end, homogeneous price competition into export markets could also increase trade friction and constrain the industry’s global expansion, warns Liu.