Technology

New ‘World Record’ Efficiency For HBC Solar Cells

Germany’s ISFH Certifies LONGi’s 27.09% Efficiency Claim For In-House Developed HBC Cell

Anu Bhambhani
  • LONGi has announced achieving 27.09% new efficiency for its HBC solar cells
  • ISFH, Germany has certified the efficiency that the company says is a new world record
  • The previous record was 26.81%, also set by LONGi in November 2022

Leading Chinese solar PV manufacturer LONGi Green Energy Technology has announced a new efficiency world record for crystalline silicon heterojunction (HJT) back-contact (HBC) solar cells. Its efficiency of 27.09% has been certified by Germany's Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH).

With this, the company says it has broken the previous record of 26.81% for monocrystalline silicon solar cells that LONGi announced in November 2022 (see LONGi Breaks Long-Time Silicon Solar Cell Record).

LONGi has achieved the high-efficiency level for its in-house independently developed HBC cell using an all-laser patterning process. The latter was developed by the company, it says, to mitigate the problem of high patterning costs for back-contact cells.

HBC cells use less transparent conductive oxide layers (ITO) than bifacial HJT solar cells. The manufacturer says its R&D team has developed an ultra-thin TCO layer with reduced indium usage. The cell with 27.09% efficiency uses only 1/5th of the indium used in traditional bifacial HJT solar cells.

TaiyangNews is bringing LONGi's R&D Chief Engineer Dr. Heng Sun to talk more about the progress of the company's high-efficiency hybrid passivated back contact (HPBC) solar cell R&D and its industrial application, on the last day of our 4-day High Efficiency Solar Technologies Conference on December 20, 2023. The event starts at 9:30 AM CET. Registrations are free here.