Maxeon To Launch Gen 8 With Over 25% Efficiency

Another leading BC technology proponent that has been working on the IBC technology for over 40 years is Maxeon Solar Technologies. Its Principal Engineer Dr. Guangqi Xu threw some light on the technology’s reliability aspect while speaking on day 4 of the 4-day TaiyangNews High Efficiency Solar Technologies 2024 conference.   

The company claims its single-junction IBC cell fares well on the 3 parameters of a successful cell technology, namely high efficiency with the narrowest gap to the theoretical limit, a strong and mature ecosystem, and robust reliability with over 40 years of useful life and 0.25% annual degradation.  

Maxeon started with an over 20% efficient commercial solar cell in 2004 as Gen 1 based on the diffusion process. Since 2015, it has been working on the TBC structure. In 2023-2024, it entered Gen 7 achieving a module efficiency of 24.7%. In 2025, it plans to launch Gen 8 or Max 8 with a new architecture, a larger wafer size and a higher efficiency of over 25%, announced Xu.  

Armed with solid working experience of this technology, Xu stressed that Maxeon modules are highly reliable, affording it to offer a longer reliability/performance guarantee than perhaps anyone else in the market.

Maxeon uses a solid metal foundation that relieves metal stress, thus making its modules durable, unlike conventional cells such as mono PERC, TOPCon, and HJT where metallic wires are mostly used. Bending of the wires due to the temperature can make these wires weak. Citing 3rd party test results, Xu said that his company’s modules performed better than the best TOPCon modules in the market after the damp heat aging test.  

For any solar technology to expand, it needs a supportive ecosystem that must factor in both upstream and downstream limits. With this ecosystem assessment of the PV technology, XU believes that moving from TOPCon to BC has less technical challenges than moving from PERC to TOPCon. 

For more presentation videos and conference summaries for all 4 days of the TaiyangNews High Efficiency Solar Technologies 2024 Conference, click here for days 1 and 2, and here for days 3 and 4.