The company’s research, carried out at Trina Solar’s State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology of China, achieved an efficiency of 21.40 percent for p-type mono-crystalline silicon solar cells on an industrial Cz wafer with integrated advanced technologies including back surface passivation and local back surface field. The result has been independently confirmed by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab in Germany.
Subsequently, the same advanced cell technologies on a high quality multi-crystalline Si wafer resulted in a new champion p-type multi-crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 20.53 percent, a result confirmed by the National Center of Supervision and Inspection on Solar Photovoltaic Product Quality (CPVT) in Wuxi, China.
Both results established new world records for mono and multi p-type silicon solar cells with passivated rear surface and local contact, on 6" substrates and fabricated with an industrial process.
The company also achieved an efficiency of 22.9 percent with an n-type mono-crystalline silicon solar cell on a 156×156 mm2 n-type Cz waferwith an Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) structure using an industrially feasible production process. This was independently tested and confirmed by Japan Electrical Safety & Environment Technology Laboratories (JET).
“We are very pleased to announce these new efficiency results achieved by Trina Solar's researchers at the State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology” said Dr. Pierre Verlinden, Vice President and Chief Scientist of Trina Solar. “Though these technologies are not currently in production, they will be part of our future commercialized Honey Plus and IBC products. Our aim is to continuously integrate technological developments into our PV products, which are currently commercialized or would be in the future, to further drive down the product cost, strengthen our competitive advantages and provide affordable solar power to the world.”
The results mark another milestone in the development of IBC solar cells, coming shortly after the demonstration of a laboratory IBC solar cell with a 24.4 percent efficiency developed through Trina Solar's collaboration with the Australian National University's (ANU) Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems in March this year. These total-area efficiency results potentially mark the development of the most efficient silicon solar cells made by industrially feasible production processes on 156mm x 156mm substrates for both p-type (mono & multi) and n-type (mono) substrates tested anywhere in the world to date.
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