The price of solar cells is expected to plummet after top producers of polysilicon used in semiconductors doubled production, causing prices of the commodity to fall 93% within the last three years to US$33 a kilogram, Bloomberg reported. About half of China’s polysilicon production capacity may be shut down because of the global oversupply, said Xie Chen, an analyst with the China Nonferrous Metals Industrial Association. The sale price of polysilicon is approaching the cost of production, said Paul Leming, research director at Ticonderoga Securities in New York. Three US polysilicon manufacturers have gone bankrupt this year and more are likely to follow. The stock price of GCL-Poly Energy Holdings (3800.HKG), China’s only company among the world’s top five polysilicon makers, has fallen 60% from a peak in May.