According to recent research by the German Fraunhofer ISE, TOPCon solar cells are well on their way to fully competing with PERC solar cells. However, efficiency improvements for the TOPCon cells are still desperately needed to help it capture more market share. The production costs are currently even higher than those for PERC solar cells.
Over the past 5 years, the production of larger wafers and therefore larger solar cells and solar panels has been the most important innovation. The latest trend is the switch to TOPCon solar cells. The Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (TOPCon) solar cell has special intermediate layers on the back, consisting of a very thin oxide and polysilicon layer. This structure prevents losses on the surface, which leads to a higher efficiency of the solar cells and therefore also of the solar panels.
Prices will gradually fall again
The global shortage of glass due to the transition to large format products disappeared in 2021, but was immediately followed by a shortage of silicon. The result was a huge price increase, the highest price level since 2011 was reached. The silicon shortage is expected to slowly disappear in 2022 and prices will therefore fall again later in 2022. Partly because several major manufacturers have announced significant capacity expansions, prices will gradually fall.
TOPCon becomes the standard
What people are mainly looking forward to is when the use of n-type solar cells will become the standard and which variants will prevail. Global production of n-type solar cells was around 6 gigawatt peak in 2021, but is expected to rise rapidly and explosively. PV InfoLink believes that this will be combined with TOPCon solar cells. The prediction is that manufacturers will fully commit and invest in TOPCon cells from 2023.
