Which of the three technical routes for photovoltaic power generation is the strongest?

Compared with traditional P-type cells, N-type cells have the advantages of high conversion efficiency, high bifaciality, low temperature coefficient, good weak light effect, etc. The theoretical conversion efficiency exceeds 28%, which has become an important direction for the current change of cell technology. At present, there are three main technical directions for N-type cells, TOPCon, HJT and IBC, which can also be called the three heroes competing for supremacy, because the winner has not yet been decided.

1. TOPCon technology

The cost of cells under this technology is mainly composed of silicon wafers, silver paste and depreciation.

The advantages are obvious, with high conversion efficiency, which can reach 28.7% in theory; and this technical route can be directly upgraded from the traditional P-type battery production line, without the need to build a new production line, and only need to increase the investment amount of 50-100 million yuan/GW.

But the disadvantages are also obvious. The production process steps under TOPCon technology will be greatly increased, which will lead to the low yield rate of the product, and the disguised cost will not be reduced.

Currently, Zhonglai Co., Ltd. is one of the earliest companies to deploy TOPCon, and leading companies such as Longi, Jinko, Trina Solar, and Risen Energy are also doing it.

2. HJT technology

Also called heterojunction battery, this is the hottest N-type battery technology at present.

The advantages of this technology are obvious. The conversion efficiency is high, which can theoretically reach more than 28.5%, and the process flow is short, with only four processes, while the traditional P-type battery and TOPCon technology require at least 10 process flows, which greatly improves the yield rate of HJT technology.

However, the disadvantages of this technical direction are also obvious. Since it cannot be converted from the current P-type battery production line, a new production line is required, and the equipment investment is huge. The investment in HJT single GW production line equipment is about 400-450 million yuan, which is more than double the cost of the current mainstream P-type battery of 160 million yuan/GW. Therefore, the stock prices of equipment companies such as Maxwell and Jingshan Light Machinery that do HJT technology have been particularly strong recently because of the large demand.

In addition, the material cost is high. HJT batteries use low-temperature silver paste and targets containing indium, among which silver paste accounts for 59% of the non-silicon cost, and the domestic localization rate of low-temperature silver paste is low, and the price of targets is not cheap.

In this way, the cost has not actually been reduced.

3. IBC technology

This battery technology has a higher conversion efficiency, even exceeding 29%, but it requires higher technology, more process flows and high equipment costs. Therefore, this has led to the fact that there are very few companies currently engaged in this technical field. At present, the ABC battery of Aixu Co., Ltd. is promoting the 300MW production line, and it is expected that the 6.5GW of Zhuhai Phase I and the 2GW of Yiwu Phase I will be put into production in mid-2022. This is also the reason for the speculation of Aixu's stock price, because the technical route is scarce and few people are engaged in it, but once it is mass-produced, it will be amazing.