The hottest discussion in the field of photovoltaic cells this year is whether the next-generation battery technology after PERC is heterojunction or Top Con?

HJT / HIT / HDT has a common name—heterojunction solar cells. It combines the advantages of crystalline silicon cells and thin film cells, and has the advantages of fewer processes, high efficiency, no light decay, low temperature coefficient, and high light response. At present, the basic efficiency of heterojunction batteries is 23% ~ 23.5%, and this is only the initial stage.

Favoring the development potential of heterojunctions, photovoltaic companies have made great efforts. According to incomplete statistics, as of now, there are about 12 enterprises with heterogeneous production lines, with planned production capacity exceeding 35 GW.

Although the heterojunction has many advantages, its disadvantages cannot be ignored, such as higher cost and incompatible production lines. This is also one of the reasons why many companies are confident in launching production expansion plans and have few actual production lines.

The TOP Con that competes with the heterojunction for the next "helper" has a battery conversion efficiency between the PERC single crystal cell and the heterojunction. The TOP Con process equipment has good compatibility with conventional PERC cells, and the double-sided attenuation rate low. The current scale of PERC batteries is huge. People in the industry predict that PERC will continue to rank as the first brother of the battery in the next two years. Compared to the heterojunction technology of the recast production line, TOP Con only needs to add some equipment to be compatible with the production line. The advantages speak for themselves.

Of course, the disadvantages of TOP Con are also obvious: the process is complicated, the process steps are significantly increased; the cost is high; the efficiency improvement is limited. These factors lead to the expansion of production capacity of the original manufacturers, but no new companies have entered the market.

It is believed that the TOP Con and heterogeneous "one brother" battle will continue until the new generation of technology matures. There is another kind of voice on the market, TOP Con and heterojunction are not necessarily one or the other, and they may have the same goal. TOP Con using the heterojunction method may be a best of both worlds. As for when it will be realized, a question mark will be put.