Trina Solar announced its State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology of China has set a new record for industrial high-efficiency p-type mono-crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells.
The record-breaking p-type mono-crystalline silicon solar cell was fabricated on a large-size industrial boron-doped Cz-Si substrate with an advanced Honey Plus process that integrated both front and back surface passivation.
The 156×156 mm2 solar cell reached a total-area efficiency of 22.13 percent. This result has been independently confirmed by the Fraunhofer ISE CalLab in Germany.
This efficiency record breaks the previous record of 21.40 percent for the same type of solar cell that was also established by the State Key Laboratory of Trina Solar in 2014, demonstrating an impressive efficiency improvement of 0.73 percentage points within only one year.
According to Trina Solar, Honey Plus solar cell possesses the highest efficiency ever reported to date for a p-type industrial solar cell.
The cell sits on the efficiency scale which is just 2.87 percent below the world record of 25 percent established by the University of New South Wales with a 2x2cm2laboratory solar cell, said Dr. Pierre Verlinden, vice-president and chief scientist of Trina Solar.
In 2015, Trina Solar achieved two significant records with PERC solar cell technologies: the first an efficiency of 21.25 percent with multi-crystalline silicon PERC cells, followed a few weeks later with a 22.13 percent efficiency record for mono-crystalline silicon cells.
Rajani Baburajan