key takeaways
The solar industry saw an initial group of 700 W modules emerge in 2022, Huasun later surpassed its competitors with a 715 W HJT module by late 2023
With Huasun and Tongwei both reaching 715 W using HJT, the technology has emerged as the favored approach for surpassing the 700 W power threshold
As of mid-2024, PERC modules remain concentrated in power ratings up to 675 W and occupy the lower tier of high-power modules.
In our previous article, we discussed the share of High Power Solar Modules listed in TaiyangNews TOP Solar Modules. We have also further examined the products in the top 3 power levels. Jolywood, with its TOPCon module rated at 700 W, remained at the top until October 2022 and was an exclusive promoter until May 2022. In June 2022, Huasun introduced its HJT product with the same power rating as Jolywood's module, thus sharing the top level with a 700 W power rating. Then in July 2022, Akcome also introduced a higher power HJT module with a 700 W power rating. The trio – Huasun, Jolywood, and Akcome – enjoyed the top position until October 2022.
In November, however, Jolywood's high-power panel was replaced with a rather low power module of 440 W, while maintaining efficiency at the same level, and Akcome reduced the power rating of its product to 690 W. As a result, Huasun had the top position all to itself until May 2023. In June, Risen, another strong advocate of HJT, also commercialized a 700 W module, sharing the top spot with Huasun. This dual leadership continued till August 2023.
In September, Huasun retook the top spot by commercializing yet another HJT module rated at 715 W. However, at the end of 2023, Tongwei also launched a similar HJT module with a 715 W power output. As a result, both Huasun and Tongwei shared the top honors in terms of power ratings until H1 2024.
In the 670 W category, as many as 6 companies, namely Canadian Solar, Suntech, Talesun, Trinasolar, Risen, and EGing, had a product listed at the beginning of 2022. In the following months, 2 more products were added, qualifying for the second highest rank in power rating – Yingli in February and Seraphim in March 2022. However, in addition to the PERC module with 670 W, EGing introduced another high-power TOPCon module with a 685 W rating in August 2022, which took 2nd place, pushing the whole group of 670 W modules to 3rd. This also meant that EGing was listed at both power levels. However, as mentioned above, Akcome lowered the power rating of its HJT module in December 2022 to 690 W. While this cost it the top spot, it did take 2nd place, a position it held till August 2023. With Huasun upping its power rating, Risen’s 700 W product was relegated to the 2nd place. However, it soon found a peer in Trinasolar when it commercialized its high power TOPCon module with the same 700 W power rating in September 2023, a rank they continue to maintain till now.
As for the next power category, Tongwei’s 660 W PERC module held this place till July. In August, EGing’s TOPCon module displaced 8 PERC products with 670 W power from the 2nd place, which itself was relegated to 3rd with Akcome’s HJT module ranking 2nd in December. However, EGing replaced this high-power module with a high-efficiency one, but with a lower power rating of 580 W. As a result, one PERC module each from Canadian Solar and Risen was elevated to a shared 3rd position, but only for the months of July and August. With the introduction of Huasun’s 715 W module, Akcome’s 690 W HJT module slipped to the 3rd place, but the company also increased the power ratings for this product range in December 2023 to 695 W.
It is evident from the power analysis that PERC was not able to support power ratings beyond 675 W for standard module sizes, and HJT and TOPCon are the only cell technologies that can lead up to 700 W module power. It looks like HJT is now the preferred choice for going to power levels beyond 700 W, as shown by Huasun and Tongwei.
The TaiyangNews TOP SOLAR MODULES H1/2024 Report summarizes the key findings from over 30 editions published during 2022 and H1/2024. Download the free report here.
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