German renewable energy startup 1Komma5° has launched a tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar module made with German polysilicon.
The company said its Full Black double-glass module, based on n-type TOPcon cell technology, has a conversion efficiency of 22.8%.
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Although the modules are assembled in China, they are made using polysilicon from German producer Wacker Chemie, which the company said enables “high environmental and social standards and transparency in production”.
Philipp Schröder, CEO and co-founder of 1Komma5° said: “We also use polysilicon from Wacker Chemie in our new solar module, although this means that our production costs are significantly higher than those of polysilicon from China.
“This means that the most energy-intensive production step of the module comes from German value creation and we can guarantee that the manufacturing conditions meet our values and requirements. No one else on the market offers this and we see that our customers recognize the added value.”
Wacker ships a significant amount of polysilicon to China to meet the concentrated demand for solar manufacturing in the country. It is one of the fairly few European companies currently producing components for the silicon solar supply chain on the continent; China dominates global solar production across the value chain and the US and Indian markets have seen much more domestic expansion than the EU.
1Komma5° is attempting to differentiate its new TOPCon modules through a focus on quality and durability.
“With prices for solar modules generally falling, 1Komma5° is consciously focusing on quality and durability”, the company said. It issued a 30-year guarantee for the product and said “In addition, the company guarantees that a nominal output of at least 86% of each PV module will be achieved over a period of three decades at the end of the guarantee period.”
In recent months, several reports have found an increase in quality and durability issues in solar modules. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) said that the trend towards bigger, thinner “floppy” modules was increasing the rate of breakages, particularly “spontaneous” ones that do not result from a direct impact like a hailstone.
1Komma5° said: “The new double-glass design with 2mm glass on the front and back results in a particularly robust product that can withstand demanding loads from snow and wind.”
From a cell technology perspective, TOPCon has also raised “deep concern” (premium access) about its quality and durability under stress tests.
The company has previously announced plans for a 5GW TOPCon module manufacturing facility in Germany, though this has yet to materialise. This plan secured a US$471 million venture capital financing deal, the largest such commitment made in the solar sector over 2023.
