Energetica India Magazine December 2020

SOLAR POWER Return to Customer Value: Standardization of 210mm Size Wafer Module will Benefit the Entire Industry Chain The unified module size effectively solves the pain points of customers, greatly reduces the uncertainty in the design process, and improves the efficiency while selecting racking structure, inverters, cables, combiner boxes, etc. and enhances the flexibility of module supply. At the same time, the installation efficiency of modules and racking structure can be improved, and the design and EPC costs can be reduced. It can be seen that the unified module size standard is the gospel of customers. 42 energetica INDIA- December_2020 Last Month, Trina Solar, Risen Energy, Zhonghuan Semiconductor, Tongwei, Huansheng Photovoltaic, Runyang New Energy Technology, Canadian Solar, Wuxi Shangji Automation jointly proposed to promote the standardization of 210mm silicon wafer and module size in the photovoltaic industry. The eight companies jointly suggest to use the silicon wafer size following the SEMI standard within the 210-220mm size range: 210+/-0.25mm as the only size. And at the same time revise the SEMI and existing modules size in PV industry association according to the wafer size. Advantages of the large size and comparison of price- performance ratio Since 2019, the cost reduction of the photovoltaic industry has entered into a new stage: the large-size of silicon wafers, cells, and modules. The benefits of large-size of silicon wafer cells and high-power modules are well-known: flux value, dumpling effect, and the cost savings of the number of blocks that drive the cost reduction of large-size silicon wafers, cells, modules, and BOS. Flux value refers to the increase in production capacity brought about by large-size products, thereby reducing the cost of labor, depreciation, and three types of expenses (operating expenses, management expenses, financial expenses) per unit of output; the dumpling effect refers to during the use of large-size silicon wafers to produce modules, the increase in the amount of auxiliary materials such as the frame, glass, backplane, EVA, ribbon bus bars, pallets and packaging materials in transportation is less than the increase in the area of the modules, which brings about savings in module encapsulation and transportation costs; cost savings related to the number of blocks refers to during the process of module production and power station construction process, the costs of junction box, potting, combiner box, DC cable, installation and construction are only related to the number of modules, so the use of large-size products will increase module area and power, which decreases the costs of module production per watt and power station construction significantly.