As part of TaiyangNews & SNEC Solar Leadership Conversations at the SNEC Conference & Exhibition 2023 in China's Shanghai, TaiyangNews Managing Director Michael Schmela sat down for an exclusive interview with Chinese solar paste supplier Solamet CTO QJ Guo (click on photo to watch video).
Part of DuPont of the US earlier, Solamet is now working independently and has been around for 40 years now. DKEM has expressed interest in acquiring the company, but the merger and acquisition deal isn't final yet. Till then it continues to work independently (see DuPont Divests Stake In PV Metallization Paste Business).
It continues to serve global markets outside Mainland China with new products and fast service response thanks to the presence of its 2 manufacturing facilities and R&D technical centers through which it can cater to APAC, EU and the US regions.
Guo said Solamet continues to monitor rapidly developing local markets as in the US, the EU and even India, while looking at trade restrictions to see the feasibility of opening more technical centers of manufacturing facilities.
According to him, the PV industry's main drivers are efficiency and cost. "What defines Solamet is innovation and that's still our core focus to enable end products to have high efficiency and lower costs," he added.
Solamet is working on the current hot trend n-type TOPCon, to introduce better products. It is also looking at heterojunction (HJT) with a key focus being how to improve processability of low temperature paste and reduce cost for mass production.
"Looking ahead beyond HJT and TOPCon, there are new technologies built on those as all back contact like P-IBC or N-TBC type of cell structures or perovskite tandem. All these require innovation so that's our current focus for our R&D department," explained Guo.
At SNEC, Solamet showcased its products including new package for TOPCon, HJT and IBC technologies. It also exhibited its 1st product for perovskite tandem solar cells.