Since Jinko’s Cheetah made the transition to a new wafer size of 158mm, the industry realized that module sizes could go in a number of different directions. With module manufacturers now preparing the next wave of 500+Wp products, they are looking to extend the size as far as they can, but that’s not the only possible scenario. The technology requires some breakthroughs, and the industry needs several process innovations in terms of overall improvement.
In R&D, the industry is working on ways to enhance power performance and module efficiency. At this point, 500Wp provides only a modest scaling boost over 450Wp or Tiger like panels, ranging from 450-475Wp. In comparison, Jinko’s newly launched Tiger PRO has demonstrated the scalability of a record high power output of up to 580Wp, achieved by improving tiling ribbon and multi busbar processes.
The path to Tiger PRO is well-defined when compared to other offerings. From the point of view of project developers and investors, the benefits are already clear-cut: more power, higher efficiency, higher power density and better performance over time. Today, the Tiger PRO is the only module series capable of providing power output of 550Wp and beyond.
“Cheetah provides enough performance for most projects, which is why it will be a long-running model. Beyond Cheetah, there are several high-performance options on the table, but all with lower scaling possibilities or higher defect rates. So, against this backdrop, we introduced a new process technology of tiling ribbon with more power density, enabling delivery of a 10-15 watt boost for the same size of panel,” said Dany Qian, Jinko’s VP, at the Tiger PRO online launch event.
The advanced combination of tiling ribbon and multi busbar, initially adopted in the first generation of Tiger, has now been extended to the Tiger PRO series and is being actively evaluated by other leading companies as a possible scaling option.