TOPCon Efficiency Landscape

In the TOPCon segment, the efficiency range initially began at 22.26% and ended at 22.53%, with 2 products representing the lower and higher ends. The first change occurred in May 2022, when the lower limit was changed to 22.1%, again to 22.05% in August, and then to 22.19% in September 2022. It changed twice in 2023 – to 22% in April and to 22.05% in June. However, in the second half of 2023, it changed twice again – going down to 22.02% in July to remain there until November, and then moving up to 22.1% in December. However, the best efficiency for TOPCon was improved only once in September to 22.65% (See Share Of Cell Technologies).

In terms of product-level details, Jolywood retained its leadership until September 2022 with its 22.53% TOPCon module, which it continues to offer. However, in September, JinkoSolar, which had been offering a TOPCon module with an efficiency of 22.26% until then, launched a 22.65% efficiency product that remained at the top of the TOPCon modules listing till the end of 2023.

As the adoption of TOPCon spread wider, several companies started commercializing their products based on this cell technology. Following the chronological order, Qcells entered our listing in May 2022 with a 22.3% TOPCon module, which remained unchanged until September 2022. However, the product was not available on the company’s website for the next 2 months, and the company introduced a slightly lower efficiency product in December, at 22%. It remained at this level till May 2023, while its specs were again inaccessible for the June edition. Astronergy entered our list the same time as Qcells, with a 22.1% TOPCon module that maintained the same efficiency until February 2023. Its efficiency improved to 22.4% in March 2023, to 22.5% in May, followed by the next level of improvement to 22.6% in September and finally sharing the top level of 22.65% with JinkoSolar in December 2023.

DAS Solar also started offering a TOPCon module with the same 22.1% efficiency from August 2022 onwards, and the listed specifications remained unchanged until March 2023. The company’s TOPCon module featured with a higher efficiency of 22.3% in April 2023, then increased to 22.5% in July and listed as-is from then onwards. EGing PV’s 22.05% efficiency product saw no changes since it entered our listing in August 2022 until June 2023, while in July the company commercialized a 22.44% product and increased it marginally to 22.45% in the following month (see Growth Of TOPCon Technology).

In September 2022, Trina Solar commercialized its TOPCon module with 21.9% efficiency, which did not undergo any changes till March 2023. However, the company’s top TOPCon product featured 2 upgrades in the next 3 months – 22.3% in April and 22.5% in June, which continued till the end of the year. JA Solar was the last entrant to our TOPCon listing during 2022 with a module of 22.4% efficiency, which was reflected in our October listing and remained so until March 2023, and featured with a slightly higher efficiency of 22.5% from April 2023 onwards.

All above 22%: By the end of 2023, all the 18 TOPCon module products listed had an efficiency above 22% with JinkoSolar taking the top seed at 22.65% for most of the year, while Astronergy joined in at the end. (Source: TaiyangNews 2024)

In 2023, DMEGC was the first new company to enter the TOPCon segment in June with 22.45%, which remained so till the end of the year. In July, 5 companies were added with their TOPCon products, all featuring above 22% efficiency. Qn-SOLAR, Suntech, and GCL-Si maintained their efficiencies of 22.45%, 22.4%, and 22.3%, respectively, without changes until December. Runergy, entering with 22.4%, improved to 22.5% in December, while SolarSpace, initially at 22.02%, upgraded to 22.45% in the same timeline.

URECO joined in August with 22.45% efficiency, which remained the same until the end of the year. In October, Yingli and CECEP joined with 22.36% and 22.1%, respectively, and their efficiencies remained unchanged for the next 2 months.

The text is an excerpt from the TaiyangNews TOP MODULES Analysis 2022 / 2023 Report, which can be downloaded for free here.