Solar Resources │ EnergyBin

PV Hardware Trade Analysis H1 2025

Written by Melissa Ann Schmid | Jul 8, 2025 9:23:57 PM

About the report

 

The purpose of this report is to provide a sample of the market intelligence available via PV hardware trade activity on the EnergyBin trading platform. Our goal is to contribute data to the solar industry that can be used to help make informed decisions about equipment trade in the U.S. secondary market.

This report analyzes data based on the following activities:

  • Common reasons for buying and selling
  • Product categories listed for sale
  • Requests to buy products
  • Major brands listed by sellers and requested by buyers
  • PV module pricing
  • PV module availability

The report timeline represents site activity from the first half of this year (H1 2025). It compares findings from EnergyBin’s 2024 PV Module Price Index for c-Si module pricing and availability.

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Table of Contents
1. Key Findings
2. About EnergyBin
3. Common reasons to buy and sell on EnergyBin
4. Product categories for sale
5. Requests to buy products
6. Common reasons to buy
7. Brands in demand
8. PV module prices by technology
9. PV module availability
10. Conclusion

 

 

Key Findings

 

1.  In H1 2025, modules represented 61 percent of the total PV hardware for resale on the EnergyBin trading exchange followed by inverters and electrical BOS components at 26 percent.
 
2.  68 percent of the total Want-to-Buy (WTB) posts on EnergyBin inquired about modules followed by inverters at 14 percent, and electrical BOS components at 12 percent.
 
3.  50 percent of WTB posts were submitted for the purpose of sourcing hardware for new projects. 68 percent of these quotes were for modules.
 
4.  Nearly 40 percent of the buying inquiries noted the reason to buy was for replacement parts indicating a growing desire to maintain existing arrays and maximize asset lifespans.
 
5.  The most common module brands in Want-to-Sell (WTS) posts were QCELLS, Trina Solar, Longi, Jinko, and Canadian Solar. WTS posts reported a grand total of 41 brands ranging from established major players to new market entrants to discontinued manufacturers.
 
6.  The most common module brands in Want-to-Buy (WTB) posts were Canadian Solar, QCELLS, SunPower, ZnShine, and Trina Solar. Buyers are looking for top quality products and prefer Tier 1 brands.
 
7.  30 percent of WTB posts stated “Any” in the manufacturer field, which means compatibility often outranks brand name.
 
8.  For the past 18 months, the PV Module Price Index indicated both P-Type and N-Type All Black, Bifacial, and Monofacial modules held their value, particularly for those that had a power wattage of 350 or higher.
 
9.  Modules listed for resale on EnergyBin ranged in power from 280 to 700 watts. Panel efficiency ranged from 15.9 to 23.3 percent. Over 90 percent had efficiency rates of 20.0 percent or higher with an average rate between 20.22 and 21.3 percent.
 
10.  Average module prices on EnergyBin in H1 2025 were on par or lower than the overall U.S. market national average of $0.29 per watt but still higher than the global average of $0.09 per watt. However, module deals listed between $0.06 and $0.10 per watt for various All Black and Monofacial modules.
 
11.  PV module supply listed for resale on EnergyBin was 96 percent new excess that flowed from surplus and clearance closeouts, remarketing efforts, delayed, downsized, or cancelled projects, asset liquidations, and leftovers from project installations.
 
12.  All Black N-Type modules surpassed P-Type supply by 18 percent. Yet, Monofacial P-Type volume was up 300 percent from Q3 2024 as sellers sought to offload their PERC inventory in anticipation of the forecasted dominant market share of N-Type modules.
 

 

About EnergyBin

 

EnergyBin is a global alliance for PV professionals to connect, gain market intelligence, and buy & sell wholesale solar equipment. Our members advance business in the secondary solar market to extend asset lifecycles and minimize waste through resale and recycling initiatives.

The PV professionals who make up EnergyBin’s membership represent the industry’s downstream supply chain from manufacturers to lifecycle solutions providers (resellers, repairers, remanufacturers, recyclers, etc.). Members oversee projects in the residential, commercial, agricultural, industrial, and small-scale utility markets. At present, over 500 wholesale buyers and sellers comprise our exclusive trading community.

 

 

Common reasons to buy and sell on EnergyBin

 

PV hardware traded on EnergyBin is considered to be secondary market goods. The EnergyBin alliance brings solar companies together to gain visibility and build relationships with each other. Many PV companies who are connecting on EnergyBin are acting as both buyers and sellers and conduct business in the primary market.

The secondary market consists of new and refurbished PV hardware goods. On EnergyBin, 96 percent of the goods (modules, inverters, electrical & structural BOS parts, and storage/batteries) listed for resale in H1 2025 were new, while just 4 percent were used or refurbished.

The following scenarios explain where these goods flow from:

  • Remarketed products that primary buyers aren’t purchasing, including clearance, discontinued goods, closeouts, surplus, and miscellaneous one-offs
  • Asset liquidations from company acquisitions and bankruptcies
  • Leftover products (new with warranty, yet never installed) from bulk purchases and project installations
  • Products for resale (new with warranty, yet never installed) resulting from delayed, downsized, or cancelled projects
  • Products for resale that are used, refurbished, or remanufactured and have no manufacturer warranty, but possibly have an assigned 3rd party warranty and/or service warranty

 

Sellers

Wholesale sellers on EnergyBin primarily seek to connect with pre-qualified wholesale buyers. Many desire to form lasting relationships with buyers who need pallet or larger quantities. They also come to access information on competitors’ pricing and product availability. Some aim to introduce products to new markets.

Additionally, sellers join EnergyBin to promote their value-added services. Some provide storage space to contractors and will drop ship equipment to project worksites. Some offer lines of credit. And some buy back excess and used equipment if the material has resale value.

Several suppliers are dedicated to making wholesale buying possible and accessible to all kinds of installers and resellers, regardless of their size and capacity.

 

Buyers

Wholesale buyers on EnergyBin come looking for an alternative sourcing solution. They seek to efficiently request price quotes from multiple vetted sellers. Many want access to bulk order discounts. Several need to locate hardware that their primary vendors either don’t carry or don’t have in stock.

Others search EnergyBin for replacement parts and repair services. Some want to connect to recycling partners. Buyers who act as resellers to consumers aim to buy low on EnergyBin.

 

Buyers = Sellers

In review of the report findings, don’t presume that a member of EnergyBin is only a buyer or a seller. The EnergyBin platform exists to support wholesale solar equipment brokering. This means that a member can buy and sell based on their customers’ needs, which often change from one day to the next.

For example, a supplier who joins EnergyBin with the intention to sell may also take on a buying role for a customer in need of replacement modules or inverters that the supplier no longer stocks.

Or an installer who joins EnergyBin to primarily buy equipment for new projects may have leftover equipment that they then list for resale on the exchange. Furthermore, an installer may have a customer with an existing solar array who decides to upgrade their technology. The installer handles the decommissioning, determines that the used modules have resale value, and remarkets them on EnergyBin.

These scenarios are just a few opportunities that EnergyBin members demonstrate on our exchange.

View our Resources Library to learn more about opportunities in the secondary market.

 

Product categories for sale

 

The report analyzed a sample of 3,000 Want-to-Sell (WTS) Broadcasts posted to the EnergyBin platform to determine product category breakdown.

 

 

In H1 2025, modules remained the dominant product category representing 61 percent of the total PV hardware for sale. Inverters and electrical balance-of-systems (BOS) equipment both represented 13 percent.

Electrical BOS components include optimizers, rapid shutdown devices, cables, wiring, switches, gateways, adaptors, connectors, transformers, monitoring devices, and communications devices. Structural BOS comprises all hardware components related to racking and tracking. Miscellaneous materials for resale on EnergyBin ranged from drones to EV residential chargers.

Storage and batteries represented 6 percent of the total products for resale, up from 3 percent in H2 2024. Common brands included Enphase, Generac, LG Chem, Sonnen, Tesla, and Tigo.

 

Requests to buy products

 

The report analyzed a sample of 1,000 Want-to-Buy (WTB) Broadcasts posted to the EnergyBin platform to assess buyer needs by product category breakdown. Like WTS Broadcasts, requests for modules represented the largest category at 68 percent followed by inverters at 14 percent and electrical BOS equipment at 12 percent.

 

 

Note that it’s common for buyers to conduct searches on the platform and contact sellers directly rather than posting a WTB Broadcast.

Therefore, it should not be assumed that a smaller sample size of WTB Broadcasts corresponds to fewer buyers than sellers on EnergyBin. Furthermore, many members dually buy and sell on the exchange. 

 

Common reasons to buy

 

Of the total WTB Broadcasts, buying inquiries noted these common reasons to buy:

 

 

What’s clear in this report’s findings is that volume buyers are connecting on EnergyBin to source PV hardware. 50 percent requested quotes for new projects, and 68 percent of the quotes were specifically for modules.

Even with primary vendor relationships, buyers turned to EnergyBin to request quotes suggesting that supply chain delays and backlogs affected primary market supply. Particularly tariffs on module imports from Southeast Asian countries led some buyers to pursue alternative sourcing options. The convenience of attaching a project bill of materials (BOM) to a WTB Broadcast gives a buyer quick insight into product availability located in the U.S. and ready to ship.

Aside from new project hardware quotes, the number of WTB Broadcasts attributed to finding replacement parts, largely modules and inverters, was the most common reason to buy representing 38 percent. This finding indicates a growing desire to extend the lifespan of PV systems rather than resort to new technology upgrades or at least make the effort to find replacement parts before pursuing other options. Although, some requests indicated needing to replace equipment that was damaged in transit.

Regarding project add-ons, most of the requests were for commercial and residential energy storage systems to complement existing arrays.

 

Brands in demand

 

Both WTS listings and WTB requests shed light on module and inverter brands in demand. WTS Broadcasts reported a total of 41 brands and WTB Broadcasts listed a total of 27 brands. Brands ranged from established major players to new market entrants to discontinued manufacturers. Due to the nature of the secondary market, product availability is always in flux.

Buyers are looking for top quality products and tend to prefer Tier 1 brands. However, 30 percent of WTB Broadcasts stated “Any” in the manufacturer field, which means they aren’t always limited to purchasing specific brand names as they are concerned with compatibility. This was especially the case for discontinued brands such as SolarWorld, Solarfun, and Kyocera.

 

 

PV module prices by technology

 

 

This report analyzed PV module prices listed on EnergyBin over the past 18 months. Sufficient data allowed for new categorization by cell technology type – P-Type versus N-Type – for All Black, Bifacial, and Monofacial modules. Fields were left blank for any given month where insufficient data presented.

The price per watt (PPW) is based on spot prices of c-Si modules listed for resale on the EnergyBin wholesale exchange. Prices are quoted by sellers for the U.S. market. The PPW is represented as the weighted average per module type per month. These prices are for modules that are located within the U.S., remarketed in the secondary market, and ready to ship. If applicable, tariffs have already been assessed.

International listings on EnergyBin have been excluded from this report to focus on the U.S. market. However, it’s interesting to note that WTS Broadcasts for Tier 1 Bifacial and Monofacial modules located in other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, France, and Canada, varied from $0.06 per watt to $0.20 per watt with an average of $0.10 to $0.11 per watt.

All around, module prices have fluctuated over the past six months. One main reason is due to U.S. tariff duties on various imports, which have caused project cancellations totaling billions of dollars. Companies have also filed bankruptcy, including Sunnova Energy International Inc. and Meyer Burger, which has resulted in clearance stock liquidations through auctions and secondary market resale.

 

 

Additionally, prices within the secondary market fluctuate beyond the effects of geopolitical factors. As can be seen in the following table, prices of modules listed for resale on EnergyBin ranged from low to high values. In some cases, the range varied as much as $0.20 to $0.40 per watt from low to high prices.

 

 

In any given month, deals for both P-Type and N-Type modules can be found in the secondary market. All Black, Bifacial, and Monofacial modules appear to have held their value during H1 2025, particularly for those that have a power wattage of 350 or higher.

However, as more N-Type modules hit the market, P-Type modules may quickly lose value, as can be seen in obsolete Legacy modules. This scenario is already the case in Europe, where N-Type supply has surpassed PERC modules.

Low-end prices are due to stock liquidations as well as project cancellations for those projects that had already ordered materials before they fell through. Deals also result from warehouse cleanups, which tend to occur in March, July, and December.

 

 

Where low-end prices are often a result of an urgent need to liquidate stock, high-end prices are marked by demand versus supply for any given module type. For example, if demand is high for a “Made in America” module, yet supply falls short of demand, then the price will sky-rocket. The same is true for some discontinued modules that are highly sought after for replacement parts or array add-ons, for example LG modules.

Price averages on EnergyBin in H1 2025 were on par or lower than the overall U.S. market. According to NREL, the national average was $0.29 per watt at the end of Q3 2024. As previously mentioned, tariffs have resulted in a hefty 300 percent premium over the global spot price of $0.09/Wdc.

This finding shows the importance for wholesale buyers and sellers to incorporate the secondary market into their price research processes. Even for those with strong vendor relationships, leveraging the secondary market as an additional sales channel and sourcing solution will boost profits.

For example, closeout deals result in significant cost savings, like the lot of 32 megawatts of Longi 540-watt bifacials listed for $0.20 per watt in June (located in Canada and tariff-exempt under the CUSMA Agreement).

Project leftovers also offer unbeatable deals, such as the lot of 12 Silfab 360-watt All Black modules listed for $0.083 per watt in February (ready to ship from Fontana, California). In both examples, modules were new with warranties.

 

PV module availability

 

 

Secondary market supply tends to ebb and flow due to market conditions. What’s clear from the report is that U.S. secondary market supply traded at wholesale prices will continue to largely consist of excess modules that are new with warranty.

In H1 2025, 96 percent of the inventory for resale was excess stock that flowed from surplus and clearance closeouts, remarketing efforts, delayed, downsized, or cancelled projects, asset liquidations, and leftovers from project installations.

 

 

With respect to module supply volume, Bifacial P-Type modules saw an uptick in quarter one.   All Black N-Type modules surpassed P-Type supply by 18 percent. Monofacial P-Type volume tracked with quarter four of last year, which was up 300 percent from quarter three. As sellers anticipate the forecasted dominant market share of N-Type modules, they will continue to offload their P-Type module inventory before significant loss in value is incurred.

The downside of rapid solar technology advancement is the challenge of maintaining older systems, particularly in locating hard-to-find Legacy POLY modules for replacement purposes. In the last six months, volume has remained low at 1 percent of total modules for resale.

The limited supply of Legacy POLY modules shouldn’t be a surprise as manufacturers have long since transitioned to mono production. At this stage in module evolution, it would be easier to find refurbished POLY modules rather than new. Likely, most POLY modules are slated for recycling rather than remarketed in the secondary market.

Locating secondhand POLY and mono P-Type modules may also prove difficult at this time as Used modules only comprised 4 percent of the total modules for resale on EnergyBin. Both module categories experienced a downturn when new module prices fell at a rapid pace in recent years. As buyers opted to upgrade their PV systems, decommissioned modules were disposed of – either landfilled or recycled – rather than refurbished. The cost of refurbishing would have pushed their prices above that of new, higher efficiency modules.

Although Used modules are minimally available at wholesale prices, buyers may have luck finding secondhand modules at retail prices via B2C marketplaces, such as You Love Solar or SanTan Solar.

Used module wholesale supply may be minimal, but as this report notes, demand exists for replacement parts. As previously mentioned, 38 percent of WTB Broadcasts stated a need for replacement parts. It’s unclear how many of these buyers would consider Used modules; however, 30 percent noted that compatibility on dimensions, wattage, and other specifications was most important.

On EnergyBin, buyers looking for Used modules specified the need for Tier 1 models ranging from 350 watts and up. Buyers expressed modules must meet standard testing power outputs and be in excellent condition.

If power yields remain high and degradation rates low (no more than 0.5 to 1.9 percent per year), they tend to exceed buyers’ expectations. These factors commonly exist in modules that have been deployed for ten years or less. However, some modules that are older than ten years may still produce power at or above the threshold of 80 percent efficiency, and therefore, may fetch a feasible resale value.

 

Conclusion

 

The findings in this report support the business case for a robust and sustainable secondary market for PV hardware reuse, resale, and recycling within the United States. Using the EnergyBin trading exchange as a gauge for this case, we see a secondary market that is growing as smart companies seek alternative sourcing and selling channels. Opportunities to invest in asset recovery and remarketing, especially for excess modules stored in warehouses, are widely available to the savvy reseller.

Additionally, EnergyBin is a resource for market intelligence with respect to pricing and availability of PV hardware that has fallen out of traditional distribution channels. This report concludes that a secondary market exists for both new and used PV hardware; although, at present the U.S. resale market largely consists of new products. Solar companies would be wise to integrate the secondary market into their sales and sourcing processes as an overall strategy to boost profits.

 

More Resources

 

Browse more articles, reports, case studies, and webinar recordings on buying and selling wholesale solar equipment in the secondary market in our Resources portal.