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Behind the patent war, independent technology innovation is urgently required
2020-06-22
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Last week the news about Hanwha Q-Cells won the patent litigation lawsuit in Germany has aroused widely attention. The judges in Düsseldorf granted injunctive relief to Hanwha, the defendants in the case were required to recall patent-infringing products sold in Germany since January 30, 2019, and Hanwha were granted the right to require the offending products to be destroyed. Besides Germany, Hanwha Q-Cells also filed lawsuit in the United States and Australia. 
Under the age of knowledge economy, most countries emphasize the importance of intellectual property protection, to protect the sustainable development of their local high-tech companies in global trades. This protection is especially tougher in developed countries.  
Hanwha Q-Cells had been researching the patent concerns passivation technology since 2008 and which is used to increase the efficiency of its PERC solar cells. This judicial decision will also negatively affect other PERC manufacturers’ exporting to Europe, which means to with a decline of 20-30GW capacity PERC supply per year to the Europe market.

Although the lawsuit will be continued, the final outcome and prolonged effects are still unknown. This judicial decision will be sure to accelerate the speed of photovoltaic technology innovation, which means the transfer of mainstream technology from p-type to n-type, as technically PERC cells and modules are facing difficulties to meet the increasing demand for higher efficiencies.  


N-type Production calculation from PV-Tech, which Jolywood takes around 1/2 since 2016

N-type production has a steady increase since 2016, and the technology mostly focus on HJT and n-type TOPCon. HJT are not compatible with current production lines. New equipment cost is extremely high and material cost is also very high, leading to a much higher dollar per watt. Therefore, it’s difficult for HJT to replace PERC as mainstream technology in a short time. Till 2020, actual HJT production is very limited, and price per watt is very high. 

N-Type TOPCon is considered as the next dominating technology after PERC, is one of the candidate direction of PERC upgrading. N-TOPCon is not only compatible with current production lines, the cost is also lowered down to be flat with PERC, efficiency already reaches 24% at production level, and this figure still has great potential. There are also many unique performance advantages because of better material properties:



N-TOPCon Bifacial Solar Cell Structure

1.no LID
N-type products have no LID, and annual degradation below 0.4%/year, which means yields will be more than 87.4% after 30 years. 
2.better low light performance
Due to higher minority carrier lifetime of n-type silicon bulk material, n-type solar cells have better low light intensity response compared to p-type solar cells.
3.lower temperature co-efficiency
N-type solar cells typically has much lower temperature coefficient compared to p-type solar cells, so it has better electrical performance at high operating temperature.
4.higher bifaciality
N-type solar cells has much lower rear shading loss which contributes to its high bifaciality.
Jolywood has been focused on the research and development of n-type bifacial cells and modules since 2016, with 2.1 GW n-type bifacial solar cell capacity and 3 GW module capacity, is at a leading position of cutting-edge n-type technology. Jolywood focuses on R&D, technology innovation and patent protection, and has comprehensive intellectual property in n-type technologies: 136 patents have been applied, in which 67 granted and 7 with PCT. 
In the last 5 years since Jolywood started n-type production line, it has cut down the cost tremendously and successfully upgraded PERT technology into TOPCon, to realize n-type products capable to be used on large-scale solar farms. By the end of May 2020, Jolywood has accumulated to delivere over 3 GW n-type bifacial modules to large scale projects in China, Middle East, Europe, Australia and etc. At low electricity price regions like Middle East, it is very important to reduce the average cost down by using n-type bifacial products.
Jolywood calls for more major manufacturers to join the n-type TOPCon technology upgrade to, through independent research and development ability to create the core competence, to further enhance the leading position of China independent technology in world photovoltaic industry.