Maxeon Solar Technologies conducted a competitive assessment of its Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) solar panels, finding confirmation of their resilience against damaging hotspots.
The company has developed its IBC solar panels for 40 years. It tested its Maxeon 7 line of panels against a series of competing technologies including half-cell ribbon-based back contact, half-cell heterojunction (HJT), and half-cell front contact tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) panels. Panels were tested in full sun and then transitioned to partial shading, a condition that forces cells to begin converting power from surrounding cells into heat.
Maxeon found that based on the characteristics of IBC cells, including diode functionality, uniform heating, and lower breakdown voltage, IBC panels like Maxeon 7 exhibit more favorable performance under partial shade compared to other module technologies like PERC and HJT.
IBC panels were found to mitigate the long-term degradation risk of panel materials by better minimizing that heat build-up in shaded cells—staying an average of 67 °C (153 °F) cooler than the ribbon-based back contact, HJT and TOPCon technologies tested.
The Maxeon whitepaper explains hotspot risks:
A solar panel maximizes its energy generation potential when each cell within an electrical string maintains the same current. When a cell can’t match the current of its neighbors, usually due to the presence of shading or cell cracks, it begins consuming power from surrounding cells and converting it to heat—also known as operating in a state of reverse bias. As cell temperatures rise, hotspots can form in the vicinity of the obstruction. Hotspots are very concentrated areas of heat energy that can reach extreme temperatures—temperatures high enough to degrade panel materials by burning the encapsulant and back sheet, as well as damage cells and glass.
Maxeon’s research and development team also tested the resilience of panels to heat build-up after deactivating the panels’ bypass diode, the primary defense mechanism of standard solar panels against hotspots. It found that the IBC panels continued to limit heat build-up even after deactivating the bypass diode.
“Solar panel manufacturers should continue to pursue improved product design—technology risk shouldn’t be the customer’s burden to bear,” said Matt Dawson, chief technology officer, Maxeon. “We believe many of today’s manufacturers are sacrificing product reliability in the pursuit of higher power and efficiency. High performance solar panels truly maximize lifetime customer value when they can match that performance with low degradation and long-term reliability.”
Find the IBC hotspot resilience whitepaper here.
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Many compliments for the well-structured technical story which represents a real exception compared to the average of technical comments that are published to clarify the differences between the various types of photovoltaic panels. I really appreciate the balance and the description of the technical problems that the panels produced by MAXEON manage to overcome brilliantly compared to the competition. But will this precise and honest technical document be able to shake the judgments of the financial MAINSTREAM which sees in MAXEON not a company to be overvalued, but on the contrary to be destroyed in the media just because the ownership could become of a person of Chinese nationality? Other AMERICAN companies are exalted even though if they make panels that are technologically less advanced and profitable than those built by MAXEON, but they enjoy, precisely because they are owned by American entities, the best financial reviews from those who prepare opinions, target prices and downgrades. Congratulations to the author of the article who carries out his task in an ethically correct way, unlike many others who instead have to praise obsolete and technologically inferior products, only because… someone… ordered him to do so Like this.