- The advancements in solar panel technology, particularly in HJT and TOPCon, led to a continuous push for higher power ratings beyond 700 W
- 2 companies, Huasun and Tongwei Solar, have products rated at the highest power level of 715 W
- The analysis reveals the inherent limitations of PERC technology, particularly in supporting power ratings beyond 675 W for standard module sizes
Similar to efficiency, we have also examined the products in the top 3 power levels. Jolywood, with its TOPCon module rated at 700 W, remained at the top position until October 2022 and was an exclusive promoter until May 2023. 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 high-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 715 W. As a result, both Huasun and Tongwei shared the honors in terms of power ratings.
In the 670 W category, as many as 6 companies, namely Canadian Solar, Suntech, Talesun, Trina Solar, 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 ratings – 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 the 2nd place, pushing the whole group of 670 W modules to the 3rd position. This also means 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 2022. With Huasun upping its power rating, Risen’s 700 W product was relegated to the 2nd place. However, it soon found a peer in Trina Solar when it commercialized its high-power TOPCon module with the same 700 W power rating in September 2022. Both the companies maintained this till the end of 2022.
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 were 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 HJT module slipped to the 3rd place, but the company also increased the power ratings for this product range in December 2023.
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 powers. It looks like HJT is now the preferred choice for going to power levels beyond 700 W, as shown by Huasun and Tongwei.
The text is an excerpt from the TaiyangNews TOP MODULES Analysis 2022 / 2023 Report, which can be downloaded for free here.
