L R AS Published on Monday 7 February 2022 - n° 392 - Categories:IBC. heterojunction
When and how will the transition from type P to type N take place?
The photovoltaic industry is preparing to move to the N-type which will be the dominant type by the end of the decade. The only questions are: how long will it take, and how will the transition from p-type to n-type take place?
Type N is expected to gain significant market share over Type P between 2023 and 2025, before becoming the most common solution in 2026.
The life cycle of a technological change (or new innovation) typically begins with a small group of innovators, who pave the way for early adopters. As output levels increase, a group of key influencers takes over. This can be called the early majority. It is followed by the late majority (those who follow the early majority). Then a final production group, the laggards, changes its technology.
Five key companies are essential to drive the transition from P-type to N-type in the PV industry over the next two to three years: JinkoSolar, JA Solar, LONGi Solar, Tongwei and Aiko. All other companies will follow them to avoid having to sell inferior products at a loss.
Until 2018, N-type production was driven by a small group of innovators: Sanyo, SunPower, Yingli Green and LG Electronics (Panasonic bought Sanyo, after it had done all the initial innovation work on N-type). ) These companies brought niche N-type products to market, mainly focused on rooftops, and often on a residential or commercial scale.
Things started to change for Type N in the 2018-2019 period, with the arrival of companies such as Jolywood, Hevel, REC Group and Linyang. With the exception of Linyang, the others now retain strong ambitions to expand Type N. This is the early adopter group.
Three companies are the most important technology leaders in the PV sector today - by far: JinkoSolar, JA Solar and LONGi Solar. From 2020 to the end of 2022, these three companies will set in motion a series of events that will ensure N-type dominance within a few years.
The other "half" of the early majority drivers (those needed in Phase 2) are the cell producers Tongwei and Aiko, the two largest in the world. These companies supply the panel assemblers. As a result of their existence, many panel manufacturers who used to make their own cells no longer have to worry about this: they buy from Tongwei or Aiko. Most panel builders only buy cells from one of these companies.
Tongwei and Aiko follow the needs of the market. When Jinko, JA and LONGi start to gain an advantage over their global competitors in the panel business in 2022, Tongwei and Aiko will have to go all out for the N-type. Until now, it has only been R&D, marketing or pilot production.
The period from 2022 to 2024 will be the migration period. 2024 will be the last year in which Type P will be dominant. From 2025 onwards, the N-type will start to dominate the PV industry.
The last two stages of the above life cycle include the late majority (the rest of China, the rest of Southeast Asia), then the latecomers (all of India, depending on the amount of cells produced at that time, and the rest of the world).
By the end of 2023, if JinkoSolar, JA Solar, LONGi Solar, Tongwei and Aiko are on track to dominate with the N-type (only from a cell production perspective), the transition discussion is over. The only question then will be how quickly the P-type will be phased out.
Which N-type technology will prevail?
Collectively, what happens to N-type will lead to the abandonment of P-type. Some companies clearly have strong targets for TOPCon production levels. It will almost certainly be the preferred technology for the five key companies above. Only heterojunction is expected to grow strongly over the next few years with a more global approach than TOPCon
Any shift from P-type to N-type will help PERT/TOPCon and heterojunction producers, and will probably give a new impetus to CBI.
To see the pace of N-type development, one need only look at the group of companies that control cell technology today. There are five of them. All attention should be focused on them in 2022.
https://www.pv-tech.org/which-pv-manufacturers-will-really-drive-n-type-industry-adoption/
PV Tech of 31 January 2022
