JinkoSolar set its competitive positioning by focusing on value-added products, including Cheetah and Bifacial based on the mono PERC technology. It has ramped up capacity of its flagship Cheetah series, seeking to revitalize the market, since customers have been eager to upgrade, impressed by its power and new features. Investors and developers have become far more interested in technology and quality because project returns and margins are predicted by the performance of products used rather than by the comfort of a FIT subsidy. Cheetah has received terrific market response being first launched in the US.
Although there are other companies who have claimed to launch panels up to 400 Watt, JinkoSolar is the first manufacturer to start GW scale production and sales of Cheetah up to 400 Watt by far. It represents new wafer size and pioneering technologies such as mono PERC, half cut. These features lift the upper power range to the next level. It will ramp up to its full capacity of Cheetah in 2019. It has had a terrific response from the customers because it boosts output and performance significant without much changes of engineering design. All of that belongs to its comprehensive market initiative. In this way, JinkoSolar is securing the long-term leading role in the global solar PV market.
The solar PV market condition will likely remain challenging in 2019 amid pricing competition. However, JinkoSolar has responded through the early introduction of the Cheetah and competitive mid-end models with new features. Its shipments of next year are expected to rise significantly while earnings will continue to improve as the Company expands sales of new premium models even as competition is seen intensifying. JinkoSolar will also leverage its strength in quality to take advantage of the post subsidy when developers and investors become far more interested in quality when project margins and returns are predicated on the performance of the products used rather than the comfort of a FIT subsidy
In addition, unlike its competitors, JinkoSolar is a geographic-evenly distributed company. All seven regions, North America, China, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, ROW, contributed to its record sales of 11-12 GW in 2018. The outlook for JinkoSolar remains strong across next year all regions thanks to robust demand and highly visible backlog order for its high quality products as well as new product launches. JinkoSolar will proactively address demand for differentiated products. Over the mid- and long-term, JinkoSolar expects new opportunities in its business from the ongoing transformation in the industry, led by the fact that grid parity to be hit in more and more countries.
All-New Cheetah Series: The Ultra High Performance Era Has Begun Driven by the rapid industry transformation, continuous technology evolution and increasingly complex market demands of the solar landscape in recent years, JinkoSolar has utilized its technical leadership to create cutting-edge technologies of tomorrow. Presented for the first time during SNEC 2018 in Shanghai, JinkoSolar Cheetah module is the world’s highest-performing, commercially mass-produced monofacial module, bringing the industry into the new age of PV 4.0 with mainstream module output of 400 W. Cheetah series has created a new benchmark for ultra-high performing modules with its industry leading performance in metrics such as output, limited degradation, shade tolerance, and durability.
Efficacy of the Solution
Cheetah modules have been designed to achieve grid parity thanks to its ultra-high module efficiency. Cheetah enters a new paradigm. New wafer size, new cell and module designs will keep pushing power results higher, even above 400Wp. The trend for Cheetah Series is to become mainstream products in the near future and JinkoSolar customers will benefit of it, significantly saving PV system cost with higher energy generation. 72-Cell Cheetah modules combined with JinkoSolar Half-Cut Cell technology will reach 400Wp with conversion efficiency up to 19.88%
Sustainability of the Solution
Once again JinkoSolar proposes a product based on mature and proven technologies available at JinkoSolar’s GW manufacturing scale; just enlarging the wafer surface without modifying the overall cell and module manufacturing steps, thus relying on the well-established quality protocols implemented on JinkoSolar’s total production. The maximum benefit of JinkoSolar Cheetah Series is achieved while combining it with the HC technology. In this way not only the performance of the PV module is increased, but also its reliability thanks to the lower solar cell current and related lower heat losses. The combination of Cheetah and HC technologies also has improved the temperature coefficients to -0.37%/°C, consequently boosting the high performance of PV modules even in extreme environmental conditions by almost 2%-3% compared to standard full-cell solutions.
Degree of Innovation
Cheetah Series modules are manufactured using larger wafers and Mono PERC cells, thus module peak power is increased by 8Wp compared to the previous generation of PV modules. Cheetah cells increased in both length and width by 2mm. Respectively, the Cheetah module length and width increase 23mm and 10mm with average 8Wp power up. Cheetah HC length and width increase 52mm and 10mm with average 15Wp power up.
Furthermore, by combining the Cheetah technology with the advantageous Half-Cell module configuration, module power can be increased by additional 7Wp and the entire system can benefit from the higher shading losses mitigation as a positive side effect, resulting in higher yields when the module is partially covered.
Economic Impact
The possibility to use modules with higher Wp class can significantly reduce BOS costs and LCOE consequently, fostering the pathway to reach grid parity.
Cheetah solution generates significant BOS savings for utility scale PV projects because the number of modules for a given peak power is reduced by 6%, thus labor costs and mounting structure amounts are also decreased proportionally. Moreover, comparing an installation with JinkoSolar Mono PERC and JinkoSolar’ s new Cheetah Half-Cell PV Modules, the area needed for the PV array is reduced by approximately 3%, fully utilizing the economic advantage of a rooftop system and maximizing the power output from the roof space. Land occupation and land preparation costs are also reduced consequently.
