China’s Trina Photo voltaic has printed a white paper on its newest n-type TOPCon modules, with value calculations and figures from demonstration initiatives. The Chinese language PV producer claims higher efficiency from its 210 mm cells than different n-type merchandise based mostly on smaller, 182 mm cells.
Going again to 2018, PV producers started to discover wafer codecs bigger than the usual 156 mm as a path to optimizing manufacturing and reducing undertaking prices. This results in a giant leap within the energy scores of the module, however leaves the uncertainty of the optimum design. At present the market is split into two sizes, 182 mm and 210 mm.
Most main module producers have already opted for one or the opposite, and each codecs are prone to be extensively used for the subsequent few years at the very least. Proponents of each codecs declare benefits in efficiency, stability, ease of set up, and different areas. For the time being it’s not clear whether or not one or the opposite will pull the share of the market, though analysts together with TrendForce count on that the bigger 210mm merchandise will step by step improve their share, representing greater than 70% of the market by 2026.
Together with this transition, by 2023 producers are additionally transferring from p-type to n-type cell designs, with tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) cells anticipated to achieve a big share out there from the p-type passive emitter rear cell (PERC) designs that dominate at present. Trina Photo voltaic emerged as an early supporter of the 210 mm format, and can be engaged on changing a lot of its manufacturing capability to provide TOPCon merchandise.
N-type benefit
In a brand new whitepaper, Trina has proven that the advantages it beforehand demonstrated for the 210mm format of p-type merchandise are extensively relevant to TOPCon modules as nicely. Knowledge from an illustration undertaking in China present that n-type merchandise obtain increased power yields, whereas calculations for initiatives in Latin America and the Center East present that the 210mm cell guarantees decrease undertaking value in comparison with n-type modules utilizing 182 mm cell. measurement.
Trina mentioned it introduced its n-type demonstration undertaking on-line in 2016, a 5 MW set up in China’s Jiangsu province. N-type modules on web site constantly outperform p-type modules put in for comparability, with annual knowledge exhibiting n-type merchandise producing 3.79% extra power per kilowatt-peak in 2020, and three.12% extra in 2021.
The paper additionally reveals how Trina’s 210mm, TOPCon merchandise add value financial savings to the undertaking. Taking a distributed undertaking positioned in Dubai for instance, Trina offered calculations exhibiting that 210mm modules attain the identical capability of 4 MW (ac) with fewer strings , smaller modules and smaller tracker items. This provides as much as a 2.84% discount in system steadiness prices in comparison with a 182 mm n-type module. Trina additionally talked about a 100 MW undertaking in Brazil, the place it has pencil modules in a 2.44% discount in undertaking funding prices, and a 2.97% discount in electrical energy value ranges.
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