Meyer Burger – 410 watt, 72-cell module using 23.4% efficient heterojunction cells

Snuck down at the bottom of a Panasonic press release, Meyer Burger announced a a 410W solar panel with 23.4% efficient solar heterojunction solar cells. This panel reminds me of what was announced with SolarTech Universal late in 2017. That panel had a champion solar cell hit 24.02% – the overall panel efficiency was at 20.5%. Same product line.

An LG 410W, 72 cell solar module has an efficiency of 19.8%.

The broader article…

…was pretty cool as well. Panasonic is a big company – and them taking the plunge with Burger on this technology is interesting, as Panasonic has been on the heterojunction train for decades versus the relative newcomer of Meyer Burger.

Do note – the specific technology Burger is selling here is the Smartwire technology that connects the cells, not heterojunction cell manufacturing specifically. Meyer Burger does that also, and Panasonic has since the 1980s.

Maybe these big companies like Panasonic, whose product brand names can support premium solar cell manufacturing costs (PERC is scaling very well, heterojunction catching up), will be the outlet that heterojunction needs in order to develop into the next solar cell power house technology.

SOURCE: Japanese tech giant Panasonic says it will be using Meyer Burger’s smartwire connection technology (SWCT) for evaluation in the development of its next-generation heterojunction high-efficiency cells. The SWCT will be delivered to Panasonic’s headquarters in Osaka by the end of June.