Chinese dairy company Royal Group on Tuesday announced an agreement between its subsidiary Royal Agri-PV Technology and Heking PV to promote the R&D and manufacturing of TOPCon/perovskite tandem solar cell technology.
According to the agreement, Heking PV will be responsible for the research and development of TOPCon/perovskite tandem solar cell technology. The technology developed will be applied to Royal Group’s production of TOPCon solar cells.
Before Royal Group’s TOPCon cell factory is put into operation, the experiments and pilot production of the said perovskite solar cell will be carried out by Heking PV in the early stage. After the completion of Royal Group’s factory, the equipment and site will be provided for Heking PV to continue its R&D and pilot production.
The two parties will establish a cooperation mechanism, give full play to their respective advantages in capital, technology, talent and resources, jointly promote the research and development, production of TOPCon/perovskite tandem solar cell technology, while improving the product efficiency.
Royal Group said its subsidiary Royal Agri-PV is enaged in the design and construction of solar farms, and the sales of modules and solar cells.
Royal Group was founded in 2001 and listed in Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010. Its main business is dairy production. In 2022, the company is expected to achieve a net income of CNY 10 million to CNY 15 million, turning from loss to profit on a year-on-year basis.
In August 2022, Royal Group announced its plans to build a 20 GW n-type TOPCon solar cell manufacturing facility, making its debut in the photovoltaic industry. The company revealed during an investor survey that the first phase of the project has started and is expected to be put into operation in June 2023.
In October 2022, Royal Group signed a total of 12 GW of TOPCon cell sales contracts with China Building Materials and Yingli Energy.
It is reported that the perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell technology is considered as the next generation mainstream cell technology with a conversion efficiency of more than 30%. In comparison, the theoretical efficiency limit of mono silicon cell is 29.4%, the lab efficiency limit is about 28%.
However, the theretical efficiency limit of perovskite/silicon tandem cell can reach 40%, and the commercial efficiency is expected to reach 36%. However, perovskite is still in the stage of technical research and development due to its unstability, which leads to its short service life and high degradation.
However, with the involvement of Tencent, CATL and Hillhouse Capital, the commercialization of perovskite is accelerating.
During 2021-2022, four leading perovskite enterprises have completed a total of 550 MW pilot production lines. China Merchants Securities expects that there will be more than five enterprises in 2023, with a total of more than 600 MW pilot line put into operation, bringing the industry to gigawatt scale.
Meanwhile, multiple leading enterprises have announced their GW-level production line plans, which are expected to be put into production in 2024-2025.
