Featured in Awarding impactful innovators – 01-2020

Transitioning to larger wafers

Since 2017, 156.75 mm M2 wafers have been the standard. However, improvements in cell efficiency appear to have hit a bottleneck, making wafer size a hot topic among manufacturers once again. In the second half of 2018, 158.75 mm G1 mono wafers were introduced to the market. Corrine Lin of PVInfoLink argues that while G1 will likely become the mainstream format over the next two years, 166 mm M6 wafers and 210 mm M12 wafers are presenting new options for manufacturers.

By

pv magazine

13 Jan 2020

Corrine Lin is Chief Analyst at Taiwan-based PV InfoLink. She works on market conditions, spot market prices, capacity expansions, and production technology across the supply chain. | Image: pv magazine/David Tacon

In the first half of 2019, some Tier-1 module makers started promoting the G1 wafer, with vertically integrated company JinkoSolar taking the lead, followed by JA Solar and Trina. Cell makers Tongwei and Aiko Solar both released G1-sized cells and increased the volume of shipments every month. With wafer sizes going bigger in the …

This article is part of pv+

Subscribe digitally to unlock exclusive investigative reporting, expert insights, in-depth analysis, and premium background coverage. Your subscription also includes full access to the digital edition of our magazine.