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LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a global leader in solar technology, officially released its new TaiRay silicon wafer products to the industry recently and announced that it had completed a large number of R&D tests and system patent layouts and was ready for full-scale production.
LONGi TaiRay silicon wafer products are the result of three years of dedicated research and development by hundreds of technical engineers at LONGi, marking a breakthrough in the field of silicon wafers that has not seen substantial innovation in nearly a decade. These products have become a benchmark for technological advancement in the silicon wafer sector.
Over the past decade, PV power generation has achieved significant breakthroughs in both technology and cost, making it the fastest-growing renewable energy source globally. The global photovoltaic industry has also entered the “Terawatt Era.” Li Zhenguo, the founder and president of LONGi, stated that the rapid development of the PV industry is essentially due to the continuous reduction of LCOE. Reducing costs and improving power generation efficiency are always the “First Principles” of the PV industry.
Thanks to the rapid development of the PV industry, the growth of silicon wafers has also been relatively swift. Silicon wafers are an indispensable substrate in the development of solar cells; their quality directly determines the yield rate of downstream solar cells and also directly affects the conversion efficiency of the cells. However, in recent years, as production technology has continued to improve, the enhancement of silicon wafer performance has become increasingly slow, and the homogenization of silicon wafers has become more apparent.
In order to create greater value for customers, LONGi insists on continuous research and development to further improve the performance of wafers and meet the demand for high-efficiency solar cells. According to Wang Yichun, Director of the Product Research Department of LONGi R&D Center, LONGi TaiRay silicon wafers have three significant advantages: full-platform support, high resistivity concentration, and good gettering performance. Additionally, as a new type of silicon wafer, LONGi TaiRay silicon wafer products also have more potential advantages that await verification.
As a series of products, LONGi TaiRay silicon wafers cover a variety of segmented product combinations and can support multiple cell technologies. They encompass the current market’s mainstream high-efficiency cell routes, such as HBC, TBC, HJT and TOPCon. These wafers can provide a range of mainstream size specifications required by the market and also meet different thickness requirements of customers.
Conventionally, the longer the silicon ingot, the greater the variation in resistivity from the head to the tail. The long-standing ideal in the monocrystalline field is to have longer silicon ingots with more concentrated resistivity distribution. LONGi TaiRay silicon wafer product can achieve consistent resistivity distribution along the axis, eliminating the need to shorten the ingot length that should be prepared by the RCZ process. With consistent ingot length, it is possible to reduce the resistivity ratio from the head to the tail of the crystal ingot from 3 times to 1.5 times. It will lead to a more concentrated cell efficiency distribution so that there are more high-efficiency cells. At the same time, cells’ EL illuminance issues on the module side can be well improved.
In addition, metal impurities in LONGi TaiRay silicon wafer products are easier to gettered, which has more space for efficiency improvement than conventional wafers. With the optimization of the gettering process, the higher the gettering efficiency of LONGi TaiRay silicon wafers, the higher the corresponding cell efficiency.
In addition to the aforementioned advantages in electrical performance, LONGi TaiRay silicon wafers also have stronger mechanical properties. Test results have confirmed that the bending strength of LONGi’s TaiRay silicon wafers can be increased by 16% compared to conventional products, with enhanced resistance to breakage. This is beneficial for thinning the wafers and is expected to reduce the breakage rate during the manufacturing process.
Monocrystalline silicon wafers have always been a traditional strength product for LONGi, leading the world in shipment volume for 9 consecutive years. In recent years, the silicon wafer sector has undergone upgrades such as monocrystallization, large-sizing, and thinning, with LONGi participating in every technological transformation.
LONGi’s silicon wafer business unit has always adhered to the principle of putting customers first, insisting on leading standards, reliable quality, and excellent product and service experiences, which has earned the trust of its customers. According to Hao Kai, President of LONGi Wafer Business Unit, there is a saying among LONGi’s customers: “In the PV industry, there are two kinds of silicon wafers: one is LONGi’s silicon wafer, and the other is all the rest.”
However, LONGi is not content with the praise for “LONGi silicon wafers” from customers and remains committed to the pursuit of excellence in product performance, constantly striving for improvement. Li Zhenguo stated, “We will continue to adhere to technology leadership and innovation-driven development, concentrate resources, and continue to delve deeply into the PV field. We will continuously introduce more efficient and reliable products to help create a new quality of productive force in the PV industry.” |
