Trina Solar has produced the first of its 210mm n-type i-TOPCon (Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact) cells at its production facility in Qinghai province, China, as the scale of n-type solar production continues to ramp up across the industry.
The i-TOPCon cells have the potential to reach 26% power conversion efficiency due to Trina’s ‘select boron emitter’ and ‘highly doped TOPCon structure’, the company said. They will form the basis of its Vertex N 700W Series Modules to be produced in the Qinghai facility, which is an integrated project that covers production from polysilicon to n-type wafers, ingots, cells and modules.
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Trina is committed to shifting its production from p-type to n-type products, it told PV Tech at the Intersolar Europe conference earlier this year, by leveraging its integrated upstream capacity to produce innovative, n-type products in-house.
The n-type shift is taking hold at other companies as well. Canadian Solar – a Solar Module Super League member alongside Trina – has said that it expects TOPCon products to constitute around a third of its shipments this year, and looking to the future the company recently signed a 7GW TOPCon supply deal with EDF Renewables North America to be delivered through 2030.
GCL System Integration – another Chinese module manufacturer – recently commissioned the first phase of its 20GW TOPCon cell plant in Wuhu, China as well. Trina’s Qinghai facility is in two stages as well, the first of which is producing 5GW of cells, wafers, and modules. The second phase will double these capacities by the end of 2025. Trina said that by the end of this year, its total n-type cell capacity is expected to reach 40GW.
The new technology offers increased efficiencies, greater bifaciality and a lower temperature coefficient than the p-type products that have dominated the PV market in the past, and will begin to put pressure on asset owners, manufacturers and developers to take part in the transition or risk being left behind.
An interesting example of this was reported by PV Tech last month: Rystad Energy found that over 40GW of Chinese-imported modules were sitting unused in European warehouses, the majority of which will be p-type technology. The company said that the increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the new breed of n-type solar products will give these modules a definite shelf-life, as asset owners will want to capitalise on the greater long-term return on investment that more efficient products can offer.
Describing its Vertex N modules, Trina emphasised the “high efficiency, high energy yield, high reliability and low LCOE (levelised cost of energy).” A diverse range of companies confirmed the benefits that TOPCon can offer in our ‘Dialogues with global PV buyers’ feature last month, where new technology was described as “a quick way to increase ROI and reduce LCOE”.