Who will rise and fall under the sun? Take a look at the five major innovation drivers of the global photovoltaic industry!

Against the backdrop of global energy transformation, photovoltaics, as a clean and renewable form of energy, is playing an increasingly important role. The continuous advancement of photovoltaic cell technology is driving the vigorous development of the photovoltaic industry. At present, multiple technical routes such as PERC, TOPCon, heterojunction (HJT), and IBC are showing a flourishing trend, each showing its unique advantages and potential.

The manufacturing process of PERC cells is relatively simple and the cost is low. The current mass production conversion efficiency is close to its theoretical limit of 24.5%. Although it has played an important role in the past, facing higher efficiency requirements, the development space of PERC cells is relatively limited.

TOPCon cells are tunneling oxide passivation contact cells. The basic principle is to deposit a layer of silicon oxide on the back of an n-type silicon wafer, and then deposit a layer of heavily doped polysilicon film. This technology has a higher theoretical efficiency limit: the theoretical efficiency limit of n-type single-sided TOPCon cells is 27.1%, and that of double-sided polysilicon passivation TOPCon is 28.7%. Compared with PERC cells, TOPCon cells have greater room for efficiency improvement in the future. They are compatible with existing PERC production line equipment, and some existing equipment can be used for upgrading and transformation, reducing investment costs and technical risks. At the same time, they have the advantages of low attenuation performance and high mass production cost performance, making TOPCon cells gradually widely adopted by industry manufacturers.

Heterojunction (HJT) cells use amorphous silicon deposition to form heterojunctions as passivation layers on the basis of n-type silicon wafers. Its advantage is that the mass production conversion efficiency is high, and the highest laboratory conversion efficiency reaches 29.5%. It combines the advantages of crystalline silicon cells and thin-film cells, and has the characteristics of high conversion efficiency, low process temperature, high stability, low attenuation rate, and bifacial power generation. However, HJT cells also have some challenges, such as the production line upgraded by existing equipment, and the equipment and material costs are high.

IBC cells are a general term for back-contact photovoltaic cells, including IBC, HBC, TBC, HPBC, etc. With n-type silicon wafer as substrate, there is no grid line on the front side, eliminating the shading loss of the grid line electrode. Its theoretical conversion efficiency is 29.1%. Its advantage is that there is no grid line on the surface, thus reducing optical loss. The IBC structure can theoretically increase the photoelectric conversion efficiency by 0.6-0.7%. However, IBC cells have high requirements for substrate materials, complex processes, and difficulty in mass production, which also limits its large-scale application.

Perovskite photovoltaic cells use perovskite structural materials as light-absorbing materials. They have the characteristics of high energy conversion efficiency, low price, and light weight. They are currently in the early stages of industrialization. Its theoretical conversion efficiency can reach 26.1%, and the theoretical efficiency of all-perovskite stacked cells can be as high as 44%. Although perovskite cells still face challenges in stability and large-area preparation, they have developed rapidly in recent years and have become the key research and development direction of many scientific research institutions and enterprises.

Photovoltaic cell technology is in a stage of rapid development, and the competition and cooperation of multiple technical routes will promote the continuous progress of the industry. In the short term, technologies such as TOPCon and IBC are expected to rapidly expand in different application scenarios with their respective advantages; and heterojunction (HJT) technology will also have strong market competitiveness after solving the cost problem.

In the long run, with further technological breakthroughs and cost reductions, various technical routes may gradually merge, or new and more advantageous technologies may emerge. Emerging technologies such as perovskite and perovskite-crystalline silicon stacked cells are expected to make greater progress in the future and bring new changes to the photovoltaic industry.