In our recent TaiyangNews Solar Products Overview 9M/2022, we have reported about Mondragon's new ECA-based stringer for HJT cell interconnection called MTS-ECA. The solution typically consists of two parts — an ECA application, and a tabber and stringer finetuned to work with ECA as the connecting media.
The specialty of MTS-ECA is that it is applied with stencil printing instead of screen printing, according to Xabier Otaño, solar business unit sales head at Mondragon. The company uses separate stencils to apply the ECA on the front and rear, which allows it to control the width, height and consumption of the ECA layer independently on each side. This also means that the thickness of the ECA can be controlled on the two sides separately. While the opening determines the width, the thickness of the stencil governs the height. For the tabber and stringer part, the machine has a +/- 0.2 mm alignment accuracy that helps further optimize ECA consumption; the alignment accuracy determines the width of the ECA applied on to the cell. For example, when the accuracy drops to 0.3 mm, the ECA costs increase by €100,000 per a 100 MW module line.
Flexibility to handle up to 15 busbar wires and the ability to handle wafer sizes up to G12 are the key features highlighted by the company. The MTS-ECA supports a throughput of 2,600 wafers per hour.
Multi-stack laminator
Mondragon has also developed a multi-stack padpress membrane-free laminator in collaboration with China's Visual Automation. It is a 3-step laminator taking into account the cooling-press step and supports operation in 8 stacks. The laminator has 2 heating plates to improve the lamination cycle time. The company offers the flexibility to configure the size of the heating plate to accommodate the module size of individual customers.
The tool uses an innovative hydraulic pressure controlled system, explains the company, which helps avoid the 'edge-pinching' effect. Above all, the laminator is membrane-free, thus eliminating any downtimes related to changing of membranes as well as costs associated. The tool supports a cycle time of 7 to 9 minutes depending on the BOM and module type.
The text is an excerpt from TaiyangNews report on New Solar Products Overview 9M/2022, which can be downloaded for free here.