The solar market is calling for high-performance modules, Meyer Burger is responding with heterojunction
At the start of 2016, high-performance, one-hundred-percent Meyer Burger modules will be generating solar energy on the roof of the Migros Aare cooperative. The trend-setting modules making up this solar power plant combine the most innovative cell technology with the state-of-the-art cell connection technology and show which technologies will hold sway in the solar industry of the future.
The Migros Aare cooperative wants to make a contribution to the energy revolution as well as to their autonomous energy supply. The requirements of the innovation project for the solar modules to be installed on the roof of the Migros operations center in Schönbühl (Canton of Berne), Switzerland, were extremely demanding. In Switzerland, only the Meyer Burger modules were able to satisfy these exacting requirements. Since the efficiency of conventional solar cells is bordering on its limits, Meyer Burger has put its faith in the innovative heterojunction technology – and rightly so, as evidenced by the market.
Heterojunction cells are a hybrid form of the two successful silicon solar cells, the crystalline and amorphous silicon solar cells. The combination of these two solar cell types enables an efficiency of well over 21 per cent to be achieved. The unparalleled efficiency of heterojunction technology is based on the utilization of the advantages of the two cell types combined in this solar cell. Up to now, monocrystalline solar cells have been the most efficient solar cells due to their regular crystal structure. Their already high, albeit limited efficiency is again substantially increased through the heterojunction technology thanks to the high temperature resistance and excellent low light behavior of the amorphous solar cells.
In addition to the heterojunction technology, the modules currently being installed on the roof of the Migros Aare cooperative owe their outstanding efficiency to the use of two other trend-setting technologies. Thanks to the SmartWire cell connection technology, the solar modules have a dense contact matrix and their bifacial design enables them to generate electricity on the rear as well as the front. Together, these changes result in a substantial increase in performance compared to conventional solar modules.Apart from the outstanding performance, the Meyer Burger high performance modules had a further convincing argument for the Migros Aare cooperative. All work steps along the entire value chain were carried out within Meyer Burger.
As well as the pioneering project on behalf of the Migros Aare cooperative, Meyer Burger was able to realize another heterojunction project this year. In September 2015, the south facade of the CSEM research center in Neuchatel was clad with heterojunction modules. Meyer Burger’s customers are also gearing up for the solar future with heterojunction. A number of them have already successfully commissioned a Meyer Burger production line for heterojunction cells.Meyer Burger successfully supplies the Swiss market with cost-effective solar systems for building integration as well as with innovative hybrid solutions for building services engineering. Its advanced and highly efficient technologies, such as Heterojunction and SmartWire, are being incorporated as flat roof modules in its tried and tested product range and will be available for Swiss customers by mid-2016.
