Back Contact Solar Technology Moves Closer To Mainstream Status

In the rapidly advancing solar PV technology space, back contact (BC) technology is expanding its influence at an equally rapid pace. The biggest advantage it brings to the table is the promise of high efficiency, for which one need not look beyond the TaiyangNews TOP SOLAR MODULES Listing. The top spot on this commercial solar module efficiency ranking chart has been occupied by AIKO, one of the leading proponents of BC, for 33 consecutive months with its All Back Contact (ABC) technology (see TOP SOLAR MODULES Listing – November 2025). 

To further discuss the technology’s commercial readiness for the mainstream and the path forward, leading names from the BC industry came together at the Global BC Tech Innovation Summit and the 14th bifiPV Workshop, a global academic summit for the PV industry, held in Yiwu, China, on November 24-25, 2025. Co-organized by the International Solar Energy Research Center Konstanz (ISC Konstanz) and AIKO, it had over 600 research scholars, technical experts, and top managers from prominent PV companies and institutes globally in attendance. 

At this event, TaiyangNews Co-Founder Min Ge moderated a panel discussion on BC Technology: The Next Big Thing is Here. The panel comprised AIKO’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Yongqian Wang, LONGi’s Director of Research Institute, Dr. Hongbo Tong, RCT Solutions CEO Prof. Dr. Peter Fath, and FuturaSun Group CTO Dr. Gianluca Coletti.   

Ge noted that BC technology’s inroads into the PV sector are evident, as every top trade show has manufacturers exhibiting at least one BC module. From a 5% share in 2024, according to ITRPV, BC’s share of the solar market is set to expand to 10% in 2025. Does it still count as a niche product, he asked the panelists. 

LONGi’s Dr. Hongbo Tong argued that BC is shaping up to be one of the mainstream PV technologies. Owing to its structure being the closest to monocrystalline silicon (c-Si) in theory, and the fact that it is an important platform-based technology. Together with heterojunction (HJT) or TOPCon, it could easily form HBC, or TBC, or HTBC – the hybrid. It could also integrate perovskite well. This would ensure lower costs and higher efficiency. This potential will ensure that BC transforms from a challenger to a mainstream builder. 

However, TOPCon’s growth has been superfast. It entered mass production in 2018 and has already replaced PERC as the industry’s workhorse. 

AIKO’s Dr. Yongqian Wang admits that although BC technology was not an early mover in mass production, it is now growing faster than other high-efficiency options and has recently surpassed HJT in market share. BC competes closely with TOPCon but offers a higher theoretical and practical efficiency ceiling, along with strong aesthetics and high reliability. Wang shared that BC performs particularly well in high-temperature and high-humidity conditions, unlike TOPCon or HJT, which face limitations. It also offers a broader application potential and built-in safety advantages such as resistance to hot-spots and fire risks, which it sees as unique strengths that help assure users. 

LONGi’s Tong echoed Wang’s thoughts. He stressed that while BC still needs some refinement, its structural and technical strengths already create value in specific applications through higher efficiency and power output. BC cell efficiency is approaching 28% in the lab and shows strong gains in mass production, supporting both rooftop and utility-scale applications by helping lower system costs. New BC-based products show strong reliability in challenging environments such as deserts and can incorporate safety features like anti-fire designs. According to Tong, LONGi expects further technological progress to make BC cost-competitive with, or even better than, current mainstream options, and it will find broader applications in both utility and high-value distributed markets. 

Wang believes the market is willing to pay a premium for BC modules because they deliver higher efficiency, which helps reduce overall system costs, including components such as frames, stands, and inverters. According to AIKO, BC technology delivers unique advantages in these settings and justifies its higher price. Safety is a major concern for customers making large, one-time investments, and BC modules offer features such as anti-hot-spot and anti-fire protection. These safety benefits further support the technology’s premium position in the market. 

Providing a European perspective, RCT Solutions’ Peter Fath sees BC as a good fit for the region’s premium distributed PV market, which demands the highest-performance modules given limited roof space and a customer focus on maximizing self-consumption. European rules also require roof-integrated systems to look aesthetic, giving BC an advantage over other designs. He noted that about 30% of Europe’s distributed PV market already uses BC. 

For companies building new factories in regions like India, Europe, and the US, he said TOPCon is often the first practical step, with BC added later as an upgrade. He argued that switching directly to HJT is riskier because it requires completely different equipment. 

FuturaSun Group’s Dr. Gianluca Coletti said that although BC is not yet mainstream, the market is shifting from a single dominant PV technology – like PERC or TOPCon – toward a future where different applications use more specialized technologies, and BC could become mainstream within those segments. 

An Italian company with Chinese manufacturing, FuturaSun says it combines European research strengths with large-scale production in China. He explains that BC technology is complex because it requires patterned layers rather than uniform ones, and unlike PERC or TopCon, there is no single BC design since many variants exist in industry and literature. This diversity, along with different material approaches such as polysilicon- and heterojunction-based VC, makes it difficult to build a smooth supply chain. 

One of the challenges with BC technologies is that they often involve proprietary IP, which can slow their wider adoption as companies want to protect their investments. FuturaSun therefore chose the more open polyZEBRA approach, which can be licensed and allows greater involvement of equipment suppliers at large production scales. Coletti says this openness helps overcome early-stage challenges, such as limited availability of suitable materials or pastes. He adds that FuturaSun aims to open its factories to partners and equity to replicate the model, with the goal of making VC more widely usable and eventually supporting demand in Europe once the technology becomes mainstream. 

The planned BC capacity in the industry is approaching 100 GW, giving it significant scale, pointed out AIKO’s Wang. He explained that the company has traditionally focused on distributed markets but is now also targeting centralized applications. He noted that BC products have recently received major certifications and show high bifaciality, with expected energy yield matching or exceeding TOPCon and HJT. 

According to AIKO, BC could increase its share in centralized projects by around 10% per year over the next one to two years. The company believes this growth will determine whether BC becomes a mainstream and successful technology. 

For LONGi, the key question for BC is whether it can enter the utility-scale market, which will determine its future success. The company sees this year as the starting point for large-scale BC deployment. Over the next 12–24 months, LONGi’s Tong said he expects 3 major breakthroughs 

• Cost reduction – bringing BC costs closer to TOPCon, ideally reaching parity, to improve competitiveness and speed up mass production. 

• Centralized-market performance – BC has already proven itself in distributed and high-end residential uses; the next goal is lowering LCOE and achieving strong results in utility-scale projects. 

• Ecosystem development – building coordinated innovation across the supply chain and creating unified product standards to support wider adoption and ensure reliable quality. 

LONGi believes that achieving these 3 goals would mark a pivotal acceleration phase for BC and help establish it as a mainstream technology.