Enhancing Solar PV Modules with EPE Encapsulant

Encapsulant materials play a crucial role in the performance and longevity of solar modules by protecting the photovoltaic cells from environmental factors such as moisture, UV radiation, and mechanical stress. The industry is looking at stabilising EPE encapsulants as an all-in-one safeguard for any cell technology.

June 27, 2024. By News Bureau

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Alishan Green Energy

High-efficiency modules

Enhancing Solar PV Modules

EPE Encapsulant

With surging demands for high-efficiency modules and warranties of more than 25 years, a clear shift from conventional EVA to EPE/POE can be seen in the encapsulant market. At the same time, n-type technology is becoming steadily acceptable in the market but with a major concern over BOM materials and supply stability.

Alishan’s perspective emphasises that sustainable growth hinges on regularly evaluating how well BOM materials align with cell technologies and developing inventive strategies to counteract degradation mechanisms.

Encapsulant materials play a crucial role in the performance and longevity of solar modules by protecting the photovoltaic cells from environmental factors such as moisture, UV radiation, and mechanical stress. While POE is by far the most suitable encapsulant for any safety feature of the module, it suffers from lamination issues and compatibility with existing procedures of module production. More to that, POE prices have not shown any decline in the past year amid the increased demand for G2G modules. The industry is looking at stabilising EPE encapsulants as an all-in-one safeguard for any cell technology.

At Alishan, we are pleased with this development as EPE is quite like traditional EVA at the lamination stage and be haves similarly during production too. More to that, Alishan EPE encapsulants offer added advantages over conventional materials such as:

UV Protection: Alishan EPE is formulated to offer superior UV protection over conventional EVA and can resist harsh UV testing as per the latest IEC 62788 standards. In-house laboratory testing at Alishan has confirmed no delamination and yellowing of EPE with transparent backsheet and glass coupons even after 3X 65 kWh of UV exposure, which we believe is the stringent check for any encapsulant.

Anti-PID: By carefully selecting the ratio of EVA to POE, we have made sure that our customers get the ultimate benefits of POE in achieving anti-PID performance, especially for glass-glass modules. The inherent volume resistivity of Alishan EPE is one order higher than conventional POE which will help to keep a marginal degradation in the cases of highly PID-sensitive solar cells.

Peel strength: Alishan EPE offers excellent adhesion with glass and backsheet and overcomes one of the bottlenecks of POE. Moreover, the adhesion properties are duly checked after 3000 hours of damp heat and 195 kWh of UV exposure, which we claim to be at least 4 times higher than the requirements of cemented joints.

Flexibility: Alishan EPE encapsulants are formulated to be thermoplastic materials, accommodating thermal expansion and contraction of solar modules under different temperature conditions. This flexibility reduces the risk of delamination or cracking, which can compromise the integrity of the encapsulation layer.

Thermal Management: Alishan EPE provides decent thermal management inside the module and does not leach out acidic gases during the operation on field thus safeguarding backsheets even if those are not breathable. Moreover, Alishan EPE encapsulants will be compatible with recent cell technologies like TOPCon and HJT, ensuring the extracting of the best performance of these modules in the longer run.

At Alishan, we manufacture POE and EPE encapsulants to meet the demand for TOPCon, HJT and PERC modules, starting with capacities of 2GW for EPE and 3GW for POE, with plans for ramping up production by end of the year.

- Nikhil Agrawal, Director, Alishan Green Energy Pvt. Ltd.