tunnel oxide passivated contact

Clean Energy Associates (CEA) has calculated the price premium that solar developers will swallow in return for the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) savings offered by the latest generation of high-efficiency PV panels.

The search for ever higher conversion efficiency has driven solar researchers to focus on back-contact cell approaches, and efforts to devise more cost-effective manufacturing are bringing technologies such as interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar into the mainstream, as Mark Hutchins reports.

Solar module prices continued to fall in January, and there is no end in sight. The main drivers impacting prices are lower shipping rates from China and the further recovery of the euro-US dollar exchange rate. Martin Schachinger, of pvXchange, expects other effects, such as slowly falling energy costs or polysilicon and wafer prices – which are in freefall – to further strengthen the trend in the coming months.

US analyst Clean Energy Associates made some notable predictions in its Q4 survey of the world solar manufacturing market, including echoing predictions made elsewhere that the new polysilicon production capacity coming online now will help arrest the spike in solar panel prices.

Solar manufacturer Jolywood, which supplied almost 500 MW of its bifacial tunnel oxide passivated contact panels for Oman’s Ibri II facility, has claimed the power plant is the biggest to date to deploy the high-efficiency technology.

The metal wrap-through-focused module maker revealed its M series at the SNEC solar conference in Shanghai, claiming a bifacial rate of up to 70%.

The two brands announced a strategic project at the SNEC solar conference and trade show which will see the establishment of trading and big data centers to help roll-out PV in China.

Based on the price agreed for the first year of the five-year contract, the total deal would be worth almost $4 billion to the $1 billion company. However, with input costs rising and the state-owned sponsor likely to expect to pay lower fees for subsequent years, the TOPCon manufacturer’s margins may not remain so fat.

The world’s number one solar manufacturer said the result has been confirmed by the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin, Germany.

Chinese manufacturer Jolywood claims it has reached 23.5% cell efficiency on the production lines for its n-type TOPCon technology. The achievement, which has not been verified by a third party, represents a 0.3% improvement to Jolywood’s reported mass production efficiency.