3Sun, Enel Green Power’s subsidiary producing photovoltaic modules at their large facility in the Sicilian town of Catania, Italy, launched three new photovoltaic modules, M40, M40 BOLD and B60, during the Intersolar Europe 2023 trade show in Munich, Germany.
The modules are expected to be released to the market in 2024 and are based on 3SUN CORE-H, the heterojunction technology (HJT) entirely developed by 3Sun, based in Sicily. The modules are targeted at both utility-scale and distributed generation installations.
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“This is a new milestone for 3Sun that comes to fruition with the presentation to the solar industry of the new photovoltaic modules that will be produced in our Catania Gigafactory,” said 3Sun CEO Eliano Russo.
The modules are entirely produced in Italy, without the use of lead or fluorine, in line with stringent sustainability and circularity criteria. They will come with a 30-year performance warranty while tests showed they should maintain over 91.8% performance after 30 years, which the company claims is higher than the market standard.
3Sun M40 is a base module for residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) rooftops, with 440-480W capacity, while 3Sun M40 BOLD is marketed as a premium high-end product, for buildings and distributed generation, with a 430-470W capacity and efficiency up to 24.5%.
Aimed at the utility-scale segment, the B60 module features a 640-680W capacity and efficiency up to 24%.
The company said the products represent a major success of the research and innovation work of the 3Sun factory in Catania, which is also currently engaged, together with the French national institute of solar energy (INES) and the CEA, a French government-funded research institution, in the development of ‘tandem’ technology that combines heterojunction and perovskite to expand the range of the solar spectrum that can be converted into electricity.
The ‘TANGO‘ (iTaliAN Giga factOry) project will increase the Catania factory’s current annual production capacity of 200 MW to about 3 GW per year by initially developing HJT photovoltaic modules.
The 3Sun module assembly plant expansion process, which began in April 2022 and is expected to be completed by 2024, will consist of two stages: an operational capacity of 400 MW will be available from September 2023, while full operational capacity will be reached by July 2024. Tandem photovoltaic modules are set to be on the market starting in late 2025.