One of the world's leading solar PV manufacturers Q Cells of Hanwha Solutions is making a significant move to enter mass production of perovskite-silicon tandem cells and modules by building pilot facilities at its Jincheon plant in South Korea's North Chungcheong province for an investment of KRW 136.5 billion ($1.02 billion).
Target is to mass produce tandem cells called Dream Solar from H2/2026, in cooperation with German Thalheim R&D Center that it says is operating a small-scale pilot production line for R&D purposes. Test operation is scheduled to begin in H2/2024.
It aims for these tandem modules to be 16% more efficient than TOPCon and heterojunction (HJT) panels. In March 2023, Hanwha produced a tandem cell with 29.3% maximum efficiency that's now certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the US.
"The tandem cell pilot facility will be a milestone for Hanwha Q Cells to lead technology leadership in the solar industry," said CEO of Hanwha Q Cells, Koo-Young Lee. "We will start mass production of tandem cells with the same level of quality and efficiency."
Calling the tandem cells Dream Solar, Hanwha expects these to become a game changer to transform the landscape of the future solar power market.
Hanwha said it plans to secure automated process technology to stably produce high-efficiency products while operating tandem cell and module pilot facilities in Korea.
The South Korean company has a target to expand its annual solar cell and module production capacity to 7.6 GW by 2025 as it announced in September 2021 with perovskite tandem cell tech research part of the plans (see Hanwha Q Cells' KRW 1.5 Trillion Production Plans).
To develop its technological landscape going forward in the US, including perovskite tandem cells, Qcells pulled in Global CTO of GE Renewable Energy Dr Danielle Merfeld as its global CTO in March 2023 (see Danielle Merfeld Is Qcells' New Global CTO).
.png?w=50&fm=png){kind=logo}