Day 2 Summary TaiyangNews Global PV System Technology Trends H1 2024

Of the scores of new products launched at the world’s 2 biggest solar PV shows, SNEC in China and The smarter E/Intersolar Europe, some of these were showcased by leading names in the industry on day 1 of the TaiyangNews Virtual Conference on Global PV System Technology Trends H1/2024 (see Day 1 Summary TaiyangNews Global PV System Technology Trends H1 2024).     

Day 2 of the conference, on July 31, 2024, continued the discussion on technological innovation and future strategies with more renowned manufacturers, out of which 2 focused primarily on HJT, and 1 on back contact technology.   

In her keynote address on day 2 of the conference, Senior Research Analyst Molly Morgan of CRU Group owned Exawatt highlighted the main product and technology trends at SNEC and Intersolar 2024. A tour of the shows proved that TOPCon has indeed become the mainstream PV technology today, racing far ahead of others like heterojunction (HJT) and back contact (BC).   

Morgan shared the quarterly data sheet survey of CRU to show that over the last 3 years, TOPCon has transitioned to becoming the most common technology amongst manufacturer datasheet offerings. Steadily improving efficiency and lower costs work in its favor.  

HJT, on the other hand, due to its higher manufacturing costs, will not be able to compete with TOPCon for a significant market share, she believes. CRU forecasts HJT to maintain a cost premium of a minimum 1.5 c/W over TOPCon. This means, Morgan explained, that HJT would need to improve in terms of efficiency by over approximately 2.5%, which is unlikely to be achieved anytime soon.   

Based on the capacity expansion plans of various manufacturers, Morgan forecasts TOPCon cell production capacity to exceed 1 TW by the end of 2024. CRU expects global solar PV installations in this year to end up between 515 GW and 575 GW.  

Reflecting on the trends at both the solar shows this year, Morgan noticed that due to inventory buildup putting downward pressure on prices throughout the supply chain, manufacturers are exploring alternate ways to reduce manufacturing costs.  

For instance, aluminum is the common material used for module frames, but it is rather expensive, and its prices are likely to go up in the coming years. Thus, manufacturers are looking at replacing its use with steel and composite frames since these are 10% to 30% cheaper.  

Zero busbar (0BB) technology is another popular trend among manufacturers, which reduces silver usage by some 20% to 40%, compared to multibusbars (MBB). Albeit a trend, not all manufacturers have these in mass production yet, she pointed out.  

In terms of future technology innovations, the much-awaited tandem cells and modules are on the horizon, but commercial availability is still uncertain. CRU anticipates a larger-scale shift to tandem cells to come around 2030-35 even though some manufacturers target to introduce these commercially in 2026-27.  

In disagreement with Morgan, and confident of HJT’s near-term and long-term prospects was HJT leader Huasun Energy’s Head of Business Development Europe, Christian Comes. As he discussed the potential of HJT technology growing from niche to mainstream by 2030, Comes admitted that TOPCon has indeed become the standard today, with its highest power modules reaching around 700 W.  

However, he pointed out that HJT comes with a longer history of innovation. And although it involves higher production costs than TOPCon today, it offers higher efficiency and much higher bifaciality that lends it higher reliability, finally reducing the LCOE of a solar system, in utility-scale. Huasun’s highest efficient module at 23.02% is ranked 4th in the TaiyangNews TOP SOLAR MODULES listing, which includes the world’s most efficient commercial modules (see TOP SOLAR MODULES Listing – July 2024). It also has the highest power of 715 W there, together with another HJT module from Tongwei (TW Solar). 

Drawing a parallel with the PERC vs. TOPCon debate sometime back when TOPCon was a little more expensive than PERC but with higher efficiency, higher bifaciality and lower temperature coefficient, Comes argued that the debate is similar now when it comes to TOPCon vs. HJT. TOPCon eventually took over from PERC, and now HJT is on its way to do the same, he opined. The key is to close the gap in cost.  

Comes stressed that the cost parity of HJT to TOPCon will happen in 2025, ‘not by chance, and not by dumping prices and not by any magic, but by a lot of energy involved in research and development.’  

One main reason that has led to a ‘massive’ improvement in cost recently is the introduction of 0BB. Thanks to 0BB, compared to TOPCon, the silver use is significantly less than for TOPCon which directly contributes to lowering production costs. It improves the connectivity and reliability in the long term. This means, he stressed, that HJT is ready for large-scale solar since it brings down LCOE.  

In comparison, he does not see back contact technology being a success in the utility-scale segment due to its lower bifaciality and higher production costs.  

“We see M10 dying,” stated Comes as he related how the company moved away from this wafer size as one of its main products to now rectangular G12R. A larger wafer size is not to get higher efficiency, but it leads to the use of fewer cells in the module with the same power, thus lowering chances of hotspots.   

Comes forecasts vertical installations as the next big trend in solar installations, which is a best fit for HJT due to its high bifaciality. Such installations are gaining traction on account of shaving the noon peaks and a possible solution for solar curtailment.  

In the future, Huasun is also looking at pairing HJT with perovskite to make tandem cells. Currently, it has a small demo of perovskite tandem technology, but already by the end of 2024, the company targets to roll out a G12-size tandem module for testing and further improvement. As of now, commercial availability of the tandem modules with high reliability is scheduled in 2025 or 2026.

Comes argued that if perovskite tandem is able to overcome its durability aspects, then it is possible to have a 800 W tandem module with G12 size. 

TaiyangNews visited Huasun at its SNEC 2024 booth to learn about its latest products (see video here). 

The Senior Product Manager of Risen Energy, another renowned name in the HJT space, Jiajun Ye, presented the company’s innovative breakthroughs of Hyper-ion HJT modules. Its highest module power now stands at 767.38 W with 24.7% efficiency, he claimed.  

Ye listed 0BB, ultra-thin wafers and less than 7 mg/W silver consumption as the key features of Risen’s Hyper-ion HJT modules series.   

At present, the company uses 100 µm wafer thickness, which it will be bringing down to 90 µm after etching. Reduction of wafer thickness leads to an increase in cell flexibility, he stressed. 

By Q2 2024, Risen had lowered the use of silver in HJT production to 6 mg/W from 7 mg/W in the previous quarter. In H2/2024, it targets to bring it further down to 5 mg/W. In comparison, the use of silver for both PERC and TOPCon is at much higher levels. Because of this, the price gap between TOPCon and HJT is likely to close and may reach the same level, according to Ye.  

Having lowered the HJT metallization cost from RMB 5.3 cent/W in Q1 2024, to RMB 4.8 cent/W in Q2, Ye said it will further come down to RMB 4.4 cent/W in H2 2024. This shows, he explained, that HJT is now competitive with TOPCon in production costs.  

TaiyangNews visited Risen at its SNEC booth to learn about its latest products (see video here). 

The Technical Director for Iberia and LATAM at vertically integrated PV platform GCL SI, Vitor Rodrigues shared the company’s innovations along the value chain—from silicon to modules to the carbon data platform at the event.  

Its current annual production capacity for FBR silicon stands at 400,000 tons, 12 GW for n-type cells and 30 GW for modules. Rodrigues shared that looking at the current overcapacity situation in the market, GCL SI is staying put at 30 GW module capacity and not acting on its plan to expand it to 60 GW which will be done when the time is right. 

It plans to venture into commercializing BC technology in 2025. As for tandem, GCL already has a single perovskite module as well as a tandem perovskite module, which it showcased at Intersolar Europe this year. A point to be noted: unlike the many mainstream players working on cell-level tandem, GCL SI relies on tandem at the module level. He shared that the manufacturer has 2 GW of tandem production ready for 2025.  

Referring to the expected upcoming regulatory standards for carbon emission control in some parts of the world, including Europe, Rodrigues said one can expect taxes on high-emission products soon. 

Anticipating this turn of events, GCL SI has established a Carbon Data Platform wherein the company will manage, monitor and reduce carbon emissions of PV products. Integrating Ant Group-developed blockchain technology with granular silicon technology, it can track carbon footprint across the entire PV industry chain to ensure these comply with the relevant national standards and requirements.  

Based on the theory of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), the GCL Carbon Chain Management Platform, as Rodrigues explained, ensures the traceability of the entire product supply chain. He presented the company’s ‘traceable’ Silicon Innovating a Zero-Carbon World (SiRo) module that comes with a QR code to ensure a transparent traceability process, including access to relevant certifications, datasheets, etc.  

TaiyangNews visited GCL at its Intersolar booth to learn about its latest products (see video here). 

R&D Center Director of Chinese solar module manufacturer DAS Solar, Kangping Zhang presented the company’s technical roadmap and future development strategy.   

DAS currently operates 30 GW each of module and cell production capacity and plans to add another 20 GW to each. Its main focus has been on n-type TOPCon technology whose cell efficiency reached 26% to 27% under 4.0 in 2024, from 22.3% to 23.5% under 1.0 in 2018-19.  

DAS’ flagship module DAON is equipped with TOPCon 4.0 and 0BB technology that significantly lowers the use of silver, leading to higher welding yields since the welding process can be kept under 180°C.  

He attributed these improvements to using innovation in materials, structures and methods, comprising barrier shaping technology, high spectrum utilization and laser high-flux carrier injection technology, respectively.  

Put together, the above contribute to DAS’ modules having a low risk of cracking, a high bifacial ratio of 85%, lower LID and low operating temperature, stressed Zhang.  

Beyond TOPCon, DAS has also developed other technology routes like its Passivated Back Contact Cell (DBC), Silicon-based Perovskite Tandem Cell (TSiP), and Singlet Exciton Fission on Solar Cell (SFOS) that Zhang believes have the potential to increase cell efficiency by more than 40%.  

By 2026, under its technical roadmap, DAS aims to report 35% efficiency for its silicon-based perovskite tandem cell TSiP, and exceed 40% with SFOS.    

TaiyangNews visited DAS Solar at its SNEC booth to learn about the company’s latest products (see video here). 

Vertically integrated solar manufacturer from China, DMEGC’s Product Manager for Southern Europe Alejandro Coll Garcia discussed the company’s new green product, the Infinity RT series. Already available commercially and being sold in Europe currently, these modules were on display at SNEC and Intersolar this year.  

A ‘good looking model,’ this is DMEGC’s mainstream product using n-type rectangular size wafers. Using black glass and black film, these full-black modules are high on aesthetics. At the same time, these are low-carbon footprint modules. By H2/2024, it is evaluating bringing in an installer friendly smaller model for Europe for smaller roofs and even for installation on walls.  

DMEGC is in the process of acquiring requisite certificates to market it for the upcoming market segment of carports in Europe, especially Germany. For Germany, it is certifying a carport module M10T-B54 with square cells. It will be followed by certification for 60-cell module with rectangular cell.  

Coll shared a number of certifications and awards the company has earned over the years that he said proves its comprehensive quality management across all businesses processes.  

DMEGC calls this one of the greenest solar modules in the market today as it focuses on circular economy with low carbon footprint. Produced in module production facilities powered 100% by renewable energy, these are Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-free, using recyclable components.    

Mainly a magnetics company, DMEGC has been operating in the photovoltaics space since 2009 and boasts of 17 GW solar cells and 12 GW module production capacity. It is currently constructing another 6 GW of cell and 7 GW module capacity. Coll added that looking at the difficult market environment, currently the company does not plan to expand its manufacturing capacity any more. However, unlike many of the leading tier 1 companies DMEGC was profitable in Q1 2024, and Coll indicated the company has been doing well in the second quarter too without providing details. 

TaiyangNews visited DMEGC at its SNEC booth to learn about the company’s latest products (see video here). 

Panel discussion  

Moderated by TaiyangNews Senior Editor Anu Bhambhani, the panel discussion revolved around new and upcoming trends in the space of solar PV technology as witnessed at SNEC and Intersolar this year.  

According to Molly Morgan of Exawatt, the oversupply situation has acted as one of the major triggers for PV manufacturers to look for alternative and innovative ways to reduce costs. For instance, reducing the content of materials in module frames.  This bodes well for the industry as it tries to adapt to sustainable practices.  

On the technology front, Vitor Rodrigues of GCL SI believes we are living in the times of TOPCon, this year as well as the next. This mainstream technology will rule the roost despite the growing presence of HJT and back contacts.  

Nonetheless, he sees things changing in 2026 when tandem structure comes into the picture which will be a gamechanger.   

Agreeing with the other 2 panelists, Huasun Energy’s Christian Comes added energy management as a major feature as seen at the shows this year. It is going to assume more importance going forward. As for manufacturers, he stressed on improving the reliability of module products as becoming a significant aspect of the business in times of growing competition and innovation.    

All the panelists were unanimous in their opinion for 0BB as the one big technology innovation of over the last 6 months that is likely to have a major impact in the solar PV industry in the times to come.  

TaiyangNews will be back with another Virtual Conference on Solar & Sustainability 2024 on August 27, 2024. Registrations to the event are free and can be done here.