Meyer Burger shifting to 100% glass-glass bifacial panels

From pv magazine USA

Meyer Burger has announced that in the future, it will only manufacture glass-glass bifacial solar modules. The Swiss manufacturer cites two main reasons for making the switch to glass. First, it wants to create a “unified, leaner and flexible concept for Meyer Burger’s future solar modules.” The group said that leaner production and logistics processes will lead to faster scalability of new manufacturing.

Over the short term, Meyer Burger said that the change will actually slow down manufacturing volumes in existing facilities as it transitions. The company’s Goodyear manufacturing site in the United States will be glass-glass from its start date next year.

While manufacturing speed and efficiency is of the utmost importance in the solar industry, there is another, more important reason for Meyer Burger’s decision: Glass-glass solar modules are a better technology than their plastic backsheeted siblings.

Officially, the manufacturer’s warranty suggests that their “Meyer Burger Glass” solar module will degrade at 0.2% or less per year, for 30 years. That means that a Meyer Burger glass-glass module bought today should be expected to produce at least 93.2% of its original output in the year 2053. In theory, if that degradation rate holds, a glass-glass Meyer Burger panel would still produce 89.2% of its original power rating after 50 years.

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