Solutions for Setting Up Solar Cell Manufacturing Globally

Moderated by TaiyangNews' Shravan Chunduri, the executive panel at the recent TaiyangNews Virtual Conference on Solar Cell Production Equipment deliberated on solutions for setting up solar cell manufacturing globally.Panelists were Dr Balachander Krishnan, COO at SSE, Dr Christian Buchner, VP BU Photovoltaics at Schmid Group, Dr Dirk Habermann, CTO at H2GEMINI, Dr Wei-Min Li, CTO at LeadMicro.

SSE's Krishnan stressed that while India is flooded with local solar PV manufacturing plans, the market is still taking baby steps towards a full-blown production market since here most module manufacturers are still in the process of switching from multicrystalline to PERC. Indians would still like to work with PERC for a year or 2, according to Krishnan before switching over to TOPCon. SSE just also one in the second batch of India's Production Linked Incentive Tender (see India Allocates 39.6 GW PV Under PLI Tranche-II).

However, the decision to go for TOPCon or HJT directly depends on the business model of the company. Leadmicro CTO Dr. Wei-Min Li pointed out that going forward there will be more manufacturing capacity coming up locally in various regions as the basic cell structure can be modified easily by any manufacturer. What's significant is that Chinese companies are accelerating their shift towards TOPCon solar cell technology. Since China is the world's major supplier of PV production equipment, the window for the world to make the most of PERC is fast 'shrinking'. 

Watch this video to listen to the entire discussion.  

The TaiyangNews Virtual Conference on Solar Cell Production Equipment & Processing Materials took place on 28 February 2023 and had other eminent speakers from companies like DK Electronic Materials, SSE, H2GEMINI Technology Consulting GmbH, GS-Solar, SCHMID Group, HANS PV and Leadmicro take part.