Most Powerful Solar Panels 2020
In the solar industry, panel efficiency has traditionally been the one factor most manufacturers have strived to lead. In 2020 however, a new battle has emerged to develop the world’s most powerful solar panel. Over the last 6 months many of the industry’s biggest players announced next-generation panels with power ratings well above 500W. However, the race for the most powerful panel really heated up in July when Trina Solar revealed a panel which will deliver an impressive 600W. Then in August at the SNEC PV Power Expo in China, JinkoSolar unveiled a 610W version of their current Tiger Pro panel while Trina solar proposed a 660W panel is on the horizon. Amazingly, there were close to 20 manufacturers at SNEC showcasing panels rated over 600W with the most powerful panel being the Jumbo 800W panel from JA solar. However, this panel was incredibly large at 2.2m high and 1.75m wide making it rather impractical.
Despite the media hype, many of these announcements are for panels which will not be on the market until early 2021. That being said, panels rated from 400W to 450W are now relatively common which is remarkable considering only two years ago the most powerful panels available were only just reaching 360W.
Designed for utility scale systems
The main driver for the development of larger, more powerful solar panels stems from the desire to decrease costs of utility scale solar farms and ultimately lower electricity prices. As explained below, these high powered panels are much larger in size compared to the common panels found on residential rooftops. Unfortunately, those hoping to get a dozen 500W panels on your home rooftop to get an easy 6kW array will be a little disappointed. At this stage, most of these high powered panels will only be available for commercial and utility scale systems, plus the extra-large panel size is not well suited to residential rooftops.
While the solar industry as a whole is slowly shifting to larger, higher wattage panels, the front runners in the race are Trina Solar, JinkoSolar, Risen Energy and JA Solar. These well-known companies all launched ultra high-power panels with ratings well above 500W over the last few months. Additionally, the premium manufacturer SunPower also announced 450W+ panels in the next-generation ‘Performance’ series.
Most Powerful Solar Panels *
* List of the most powerful panels currently in production or soon to be released with a maximum panel size of 2.3m high x 1.3m wide. Availability and release dates may vary for different regions.
MakeModelPOWER (W)Cell sizeCell typeEfficiency %AvailJinko SolarTiger Pro 78TR610 W182mmN-Type HC TOPCon22.3 %Q1 2021**SunTechHIPower Ultra605 W210mmP-Type 1/3-cut Mono PERC21.3 %Q1 2021**Trina SolarVertex600 W210mmN-Type 1/3-cut TOPCon21.0 %Q1 2021**Canadian SolarHiKu6590 W182mmP-Type HC Mono PERC21.3 %Q1 2021**LongiHi-Mo 5540 W182mmP-Type HC Mono PERC21.0 %Q2 2020SeraphimSII530 W210mmP-Type HC Mono PERC20.3 %Q1 2021**JA SolarDeepBlue 3.0525 W180mmP-Type Mono PERC Ga-doped20.8 %Q3 2020Risen EnergyJager Plus500 W210mmP-Type HC Mono PERC20.8 %Q2 2020
** Official release date yet to be determined - High volume production estimated to begin early 2021.
Larger Panel Sizes
In the past, most increases in panel power came from efficiency gains due to advances in solar cell technology. While that is partly a driver behind the massive jump in panel wattage, the main factor is the new larger cell sizes being developed together with a higher number of cells per panel. These new cell formats and configurations mean the new panels are physically much larger in size. Generally, the large panels are best suited for utility-scale solar farms or commercial installations.
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Traditionally solar panels were available in two main sizes - the standard format 60 cell panels (roughly 1.65m high x 1m wide) used for residential rooftops, and the larger format 72 cell commercial size panels (roughly 2m high x 1m wide). Then half-cut cell panels emerged in roughly the same size but with double the amount of half-size cells at 120 cells and 144 cells. Besides the standard sizes, there are a few premium manufactures such as SunPower and Panasonic producing unique 96 and 104 cell panels.
The industry-standard panel size for much of the last decade was built around the 156mm x 156mm or 6-inch square cell format. The new panel sizes emerging are up to 2.3m long and 1.1m wide and provide a much larger panel (and cell) surface area. This is an increase of close to 20% compared to the traditional 2m x 1m 72-cell panels.
Larger Cell Sizes
To decrease manufacturing costs and gain efficiency, manufacturers have moved away from the standard 156mm (6”) square cell wafer size in favour of larger wafer sizes. While there are a variety of various cell sizes under development, a few new cell sizes seem to have emerged as the new industry standard; these include 166mm, 182mm and 210mm. Many of the leading manufacturers including Jinko, Longi and Canadian Solar have aligned with the 182mm format, Trina Solar is pushing the larger 210mm size, while Longi, the world’s largest mono silicon wafer manufacture, is using both the 166mm and 182mm sizes depending on the application.
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To remain competitive, many of the smaller volume manufactures may need to align with one of the new wafer sizes to utilise common wafer and equipment suppliers. For a complete history and insight into wafer and PV cell sizing standards, this detailed article from PV Tech examines the various wafer and ingot sizes, technology changes, and manufacturing trends around current and future PV cells.
Along with the different cell sizes, there is a myriad of new panels configurations built around the many cell combinations. The three most popular which have emerged are 66-cell (half-cut 132), 78-cell (half-cut 156), and 84-cell (half-cut 168) panels. The extra-large 210mm cells are also well suited to unique cell dividing formats such as 1/3 cut cells; where the square wafer is divided into three segments rather than the common half-cut or half-size cell.
High Efficiency Cells
To achieve these impressive power ratings the panels and cells have not just increased in size but cell efficiency has improved substantially using numerous new technologies (listed below) along with advanced rear side passivation techniques like TOPCon.
- MBB - Multi-busbars
- PERC/PERC+ - Passivated emitter & rear cell
- TOPCon - Tunnel-Oxide Passivating Contact
- N-type Silicon cells
- TR - Tiling Ribbon - Eliminating inter-cell gaps
Many manufacturers are exploring different ways to increase power and boost cell efficiency by spending big on research and development. The use of N-type silicon is one of the simplest ways to boost efficiency but also one of the more costly methods. However, the price gap between P-type and N-type silicon is reducing as the economies of scale bring the cost of manufacturing the high performance N-type silicon wafers down.
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Chart of the maximum solar panel power trend from 2009 to 2021 - Image credit Trina Solar
MBB - Multi-Busbars
Of the many cell improvements, the most common technology used to increase efficiency has been multi-busbars (MBB). Traditional ribbon busbars (5BB or 6BB) are being rapidly phased out in favour of nine or more thin wire busbars (9BB). Some manufacturers such as REC have even moved to 16 micro-wire busbars in the new Alpha panel series. Wider cells also mean more busbars can fit across the cell surface with 10 or 12 busbars cells also becoming more common.
Bifacial panels featuring MBB are also growing in popularity due to the increased power output by utilising the rear side of the panel to achieve up to 20% or more power (roughly 80W extra). However, bifacial panels are generally only beneficial over light coloured surfaces such as light sandy or rocky ground used in large MW scale solar farms located in more arid areas.
TR - Tiling Ribbon Technology
JinkoSolar, currently the world’s largest panel manufacturer, developed what the company refers to as Tiling Ribbon or TR cells. Tiling Ribbon cell technology is the elimination of the inter-cell gap (the thin gap between cells). By slightly overlapping the cells and removing the small gap, overall cell area increases and therefore total panel efficiency rises. The tiling ribbon cell technology also dramatically reduces the amount of solder required through using inter-cell compression joining methods rather than soldering. Shingled cell panels, such as those used in the Sunpower Performance series, also use slightly overlapping thin cell strips which can be configured into larger format high-power panels.
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Increasing efficiency using Tiling Ribbon cell technology to remove the inter-cell gap - Image credit Jinko
Other manufacturers are taking a similar approach to boost efficiency by reducing the inter-cell gap as much a possible but still leaving a very small gap of around 0.5mm or less. This effectively removes the gap without having to develop new cell interconnection techniques.
N-Type Silicon Cells
Cells built on a N-type silicon base offer improved performance over the more common P-type silicon due to a greater tolerance to impurities which increases overall efficiency. In addition, N-type cells have better temperature tolerance compared to both mono and multi P-type cells. More importantly N-type cells have a much lower rate of LID (light induced degradation) compared to P-type cells.