Canada headquartered solar module manufacturer Silfab Solar has launched a new module series called Elite, saying this will be one with the ‘highest efficiency and most durable solar panel ever produced by the company’. The new module is manufactured in the US at the company’s Bellingham fab in Washington and targets the North American residential solar segment. Silfab has another manufacturing location, in Canada’s Toronto.
Silfab Solar explains the SIL 370-380 BK Elite line offers up to 21.4% power conversion efficiency and comes with advanced back-contact technology in metal wrap through (MWT) fashion. Not to confuse with well known premium back contact technology also known as IBC, in which the entire metallization pattern is moved on the rear of the cell, Silfab’s MWT approach partially accomplishes this job. While the fingers stay still on the front, the busbars are moved on to the rear and the connection is established by means of via-holes filled with silver pastes. This, it explains, reduces front cell metallization, minimizing shading losses while alleviating locked-in-mechanical stress in the electrical contacts. Silfab Solar’s team claims this leads to improved performance.
The Elite series uses 66-cell configuration of high efficiency back contact mono-PERC c-Si cells, with the glass having DSM anti-reflective coating.
The company said it has secured premier distribution partners for the ‘sleek’ new model. It is offering module product workmanship warranty of 12 years and linear power performance guarantee of 30 years.
“Silfab continues to engineer products specifically designed for the North American home owner–manufactured locally for superior quality, the highest durability and now the most powerful module available,” said Silfab President and CEO Paolo Maccario.
In November 2020, the company said its metal wrap-through (MWT) modules with 60-cell, 120-cell and 72-cell modules underwent PV Evolution Labs (PVEL) real-world stress tests for backsheet durability sequence and were adjudged to have reported strong performance.
In February 2021, Chinese solar module maker LONGi launched a new 66-cell Hi-MO 4 monofacial PV module targeting global residential, commercial and industrial distributed generation market (see New 66 Cell Hi-Mo4 Monofacial Module By LONGi).
On January 27 & 28, 2021, TaiyangNews held Advanced Module Technologies conference for rooftop & utility scale applications (see Jan 27-28 Advanced Solar Modules). During the event, we launched our new report called Advanced Module Technologies 2021 that looks at commercially advanced standard solar modules for all 3 main market segments as utility-scale, C&I and rooftops. It can be downloaded for free here.
Speaking of solar modules and BOS, TaiyangNews is set to host another virtual conference on Bifacial Solar on March 4, 2021 when leading manufacturers and testing companies will come forth to discuss the status and outlook for this technology. We will also launch our Bifacial Solar 2021 Report on the occasion. Registrations are free here.