The non-modules cost includes ‘area-proportional’ such as spending on racking, land, construction, transportation, etc., and ‘Others’ which refers to costs of electronic components that are quoted in terms of power rather than area. Today, the value of module efficiency becomes greater, increasing the incentive to adopt higher efficiency and high power products.
In a case with a restricted grid interconnection capacity or a defined project power capacity, when modules of higher efficiency are adopted, the required number of modules, land area, and ‘area-proportional’ costs are all reduced linearly. Therefore, the per-watt spending on area-related items is inversely proportional to module efficiency. For example, a defined 100MW project power capacity needs 169490 pieces conventional 590W panel but only needs 165290 pieces of Tiger Neo 605W, 2.5% quantity of panels and its related BOS cost as well as later O&M cost is significantly saved. Tiger Neo panels of higher efficiency up to 22.3% do help lower the unit cost (per-watt) of non-module components in a utility PV system.
In a case with a defined land area, when modules of higher efficiency are adopted, all area-proportional costs are averaged over more power, so their per-watt value is reduced proportionally. For example, a commercial rooftop space that allows 10MW deployment of the conventional p-PERC module can be installed with 10.3MW Tiger Neo modules of the same size. In commercial PV, due to restricted economies of scale, area-proportional and fixed non-module costs are higher. In addition, since the dominant portion of the commercial generation is on-site consumption, the realized value of PV generation depends on the flow of the electricity as well as the flow of cash. Therefore, Module efficiency holds more value in commercial PV.
JinkoSolar’s Tiger Neo 72-cell panel has a power output ranging from 555W to 575W, the 78-cell series offers a maximum output of 615W, while the 60-cell residential panel comes in a 460-480W model. All Tiger Neo modules have an efficiency over 22%, which is higher than what’s generally currently available on the market. But, higher efficiency is not a simple story about Tiger Neo. A toe-to-toe comparison of same capacity projects, Tiger Neo modules adopting n-type cell technology generate more power than conventional modules, giving more power per panel and more kWh per KWp, thanks to the advantage of lower temperature coefficient, lower degradation, extremely low LID, and better low light performance, and higher bifacial factor is an extra benefit for Tiger Neo bifacial versions. For example, in general, the yield gain of a Tiger Neo system is about 3%-5% over its p-PERC counterpart with the same system capacity.
