Russia-based high-efficiency heterojunction solar module producer Hevel Group is set to expand solar cell and module assembly capacity to 340MW in 2020.
In a release on Monday, Hevel said it is planning to fully ramp up the 80MW capacity increase in the third quarter of 2020, building on the 260MW that is already installed.
The company's push has come amid efforts to add further PECVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) tools and improved throughput, as well as production line optimisation of existing equipment to enable the expansion.
Hevel had completed a second phase of plant modernisation in June 2019, resulting in capacity growing from an initial 160MW back in 2016 to the 260MW that had been announced in October 2018.
Hevel noted that it has also started volume production of 72-cell bifacial HJT modules with a capacity of up to 385W. Power output of the modules considering the ‘bifaciality factor’ was said to be more than 440W.
In late February, REC Group announced it had started production of its first 72-cell ‘Alpha Series’ HJ modules at its dedicated plant in Singapore. The modules' performance was put as high as 450Wp. REC has a HJ capacity of 600MW.
According to PV Tech’s ongoing tracking of capacity expansion announcements since 2014, heterojunction cell technology announcements increased significantly in 2019, reaching at least 14GW of planned expansions, up from over 1GW announced in 2018.