Chinese solar manufacturer Runergy has launched the third generation of its tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar modules, which have a cell conversion efficiency of 26.9%.
Launched at last week’s Intersolar Europe 2026 event in Munich, Germany, the efficiency of the Runergy TOPCon 3.0 ‘technology system’ was verified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISFH) in Germany. The new efficiency figure is driven by a number of improvements in the cell manufacturing process, such as Runergy’s “self-developed RunPass passivation technology”, which improves rear-side cell passivation and cuts carrier recombination losses on the rear surface, improving overall efficiency.
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“It is worth emphasising that this is a full-area double-sided cell,” added Dr Tao Longzhong, Runergy general manager and director of its PV R&D laboratory, who spoke at the Intersolar Event. “We did not boost test efficiency by adopting full metallisation on the rear side or reducing active window area.
“In fact, improved uniformity across the entire wafer including edges stands as one of the key contributors to this efficiency breakthrough.”
The commercial launch of the latest generation of modules comes after the start of pilot production of the company’s previous generation of cells. Last November, Runergy started production of a TOPCon cell with a conversion efficiency of 26.55%, and the company noted that its TOPCon products have seen an improvement in efficiency of 1.5 percentage points in the last 22 months.
The news follows a legal victory for Runergy in April, when the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) threw out claims of patent infringement made by Trina Solar against Runergy and Canadian Solar. The claims pertained to TOPCon technology, and are among a plethora of patent investigations that have recently been conducted in the global solar sector.
Runergy was not the only company to launch a new module at this year’s Intersolar Europe event, with leading Chinese manufacturers Aiko, LONGi and GCL-SI all announcing new modules at the trade show.
Read all of PV Tech’s coverage of Europe’s biggest solar trade show here.
