Successful Delivery of RPD Equipment——Key Process Equipment from Conventional HJT to High-Efficiency HJT

The history from BSF to PERC has witnessed a grand chapter in the development of the Chinese photovoltaic industry. Nowadays, S.C has introduced a new set of key equipment, the self-developed RPD5500A equipment, which transforms a regular HJT process into a high-efficiency (and even ultra-high-efficiency) HJT process. With the conversion efficiency improved by a conservative estimate of over 0.6% from regular HJT to high-efficiency HJT, S.C has once again dedicated a masterpiece of equipment and process to the Chinese PV industry, and in particular to the HJT sector.

The photovoltaic industry is experiencing ups and downs in these years. However, the players in the industry are still forging ahead through trials and tribulations with the spirit of perseverance. As a key technical driving force for the development of photovoltaics, the solar cell equipment manufacturing industry has been racing against the clock to research and develop new equipment that meets the industrial demand for mass production and reproducibility.

As a leading enterprise in the industry of PV equipment, S.C is fully aware of the mission it is undertaking and has never stopped exploring and developing new technologies and products. Through the recent years of international cooperation, the introduction of overseas talents, and the mastery of international advanced technology, S.C's latest developed generation of key HJT mass-production equipment, RPD5500A, has recently completed factory assembly and commissioning and will be delivered to the customer's site for the production of high-efficiency and ultra-high-efficiency HJT solar cells. This marks the birth of a new high-throughput RPD model with independent intellectual property rights that will bring new efficiency gain points and cost optimization points to the high-efficiency (and even ultra-high-efficiency) HJT technology.

The new model of RPD equipment has excellent comprehensive performance in photoelectric effect, such as low ion bombardment, high transmittance, high carrier mobility, etc. Based on the formerly used technologies, S.C applied several leading-edge key technologies (heating, cold trap, etc.) of the semiconductor display industry, and designed a composite combination of multiple processes. In particular, an ingenious structural design enlarges the light receiving area of the incident surface to achieve higher efficiency gains for 166mm solar cells. On the basis of the test data from our factory samples, the samples using an HJT equipment and process program that includes at least one process of the new RPD front-side coating have an efficiency gain of at least 0.6% over those using the current conventional HJT equipment and process, ceteris paribus. If combined with the new generation of target technology and process, the carrier mobility will exceed the value of 140, resulting in higher efficiency gain, lower electron resonance absorption, better long wave light transmittance and finer conductivity, thereby better mitigating and even solving the major pain point of large consumption of low-temperature silver paste for HJT solar cells.

Furthermore, S.C will soon introduce the two-in-one equipment, PAR5500, with the new RPD processing the front side and the PVD processing the rear side. Both processes are flawlessly integrated into one set of main equipment and one set of automation, cutting the footprint by half and immensely reducing the equipment cost. Also, with the emergence of outstanding domestic target suppliers, the imported target is already substitutable, and the cost of target material for a single piece of solar cell is comparable to PVD.

We may foresee that in the future, the spotlight of photovoltaics will be on HJT, whereas the spotlight of high-efficiency & ultra-high-efficiency HJT will be on the new RPD! The development of the current conventional HJT technology is in a bottleneck. Meanwhile, represented by the new RPD technology, the high-efficiency & ultra-high-efficiency HJT has just begun to take off. The key HJT equipment that will determine higher efficiency solar cell production in the future will depend on the depth of S.C's research and development in various coating equipment, including the new RPD. Spring has arrived for HJT, and S.C's series of HJT equipment, spearheaded by the new RPD equipment, will bring the process of high-efficiency HJT into the hot summer season!