Trina Solar sets world record for solar technology

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Trina Solar has set a new world record for the conversion efficiency of a certain type of solar module, the company said in a statement on Monday.

In laboratory tests, Trina's large surface area n-type fully passivated heterojunction (HJT) modules demonstrated an efficiency of 25.44%, according to the results certified by the Fraunhofer CalLab in Germany, a solar research body.

Passivation is a technology that covers defects on the surface of a solar cell, while cell efficiency refers to the percentage of solar energy hitting a device that is converted into usable electricity. Increasing cell efficiency can help reduce the size needed for solar installations as well as cutting costs.

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Professor Martin Green at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, whose lab held the solar cell efficiency record for decades, said the result demonstrated the potential of HJT solar technology, one of several contending to become the predominant next-generation technology for the sector.

"In the long run it's all about efficiency, so even if some sequences are at the moment more costly than others, what tends to happen is that as the industry gets itself into a new technology the cost comes down quite quickly," Green told Reuters.

Trina's chairman and CEO Gao Jifan said the company will continue to increase its research and development in passivated solar technology to maintain its technology leadership.

HJT remains a relatively small percentage of the market, estimated by solar consultancy InfoLink to make up 7% of high-efficiency solar cell capacity in 2024, 8% in 2025 and 9% in 2026. TopCON, or tunnel activated passive contact, cells are expected to make up the bulk of the market over the next five years.

In addition to representing a record for HJT technology, the results are a new milestone for the photoelectric conversion efficiency of single-crystalline silicon solar cell modules, Trina said in the statement.

(Reporting by Colleen Howe and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)