Jinko’s High Efficiency Module Tiger Already Places the Company Ahead of Competitors

JinkoSolar’s worldwide market share has grown significantly over the past few years. Its continuous improvements in product line has reflected well into its increasing sales per quarter. Market entry of new Tiger module launched at All Energy Australia last month, has been reviewed well with marked gains in efficiency and overall performance. 460 Wp Tiger will bring an immense power and performance jump.

Solar market globally has observed 430 Wp panels using 166 mm size wafer filtering into. While, JinkoSolar has already 460 Wp in production. The overall performance gain from 460 WP Tiger is expected to be more compared to 430 Wp. The improvements are said to be about 15% of an improved power gain.

When 430 Wp panel of 166 mm wafer is being questioned whether it can find enough customers to justify the investment, 460 Wp panel is arriving. According to JinkoSolar, it will be ready for mass production in first half of 2020, which positions it ahead of its industry peers globally.

The company is confident that its most of customers will quickly adapt to Tiger mainly because of its high efficiency & high power class.

We caught up with Mr. Jeff Zhou, JinkoSolar’s Director Product Management to find out what makes it purr.

What is new in the Tiger Series module to offer?

Jeff Zhou: Tiger series has three key distinct features to offer. First, it deploys nine busbars (9BB), second is 78 cell format, and third is its tiling ribbon (TR) technology. In normal modules, the distance between cells is around 2 mm.  It means the module area is not fully used. In Tiger series, we aim to utilize complete module area by overlapping the cells to increase energy density.

It delivers 20.78% mono-facial efficiency & power output of up to 460 Wp. This results into reduction in module quantity, labor costs & construction time in addition to saving in Land. BoS [reduction] benefit, as with other Jinko high efficiency products, is also notable. It will lead to lower LCOE.

But doesn’t it, by overlapping cells, introduce material inefficiency? I mean, you are covering up part of the cell.

Our focus is to bring in best value to our customers. To adhere with this, we aim to provide the best optimized products to customers. In Tiger, overlapping cells will cause some material inefficiency. However, the increase in overall module efficiency will bring more benefits to customers. These benefits comfortably covers the material inefficiency loss. That is the reason why we chose TR.

How long was the Tiger in development?

We prepared for almost one year for this moment.

What kind of production capacity will you have for this module?

We have several GW for the Tiger Series. Actually, any expansion of capacity would depend on the market demand.

Besides the overlapping of the cells, what else contributes to its high performance?

In addition to super high power, the Tiger also has the better field test performance. Because light absorption will be reutilized by circular ribbon & superior low irradiance performance due to series resistance. This gives higher energy output during operation.

How has been the response to the new module?

Customers have been really amazed. We launched our Swan module with transparent backsheet at Intersolar Europe in May this year, which achieves 415 Wp. Within less than half a year, we unveiled our Tiger Series. This is a testimony that Jinko is always  Solar module technology market thought leader. There is a huge demand for our high efficiency modules – to achieve lower LCOE in Global Solar market. With our high efficiency series (Tiger, Swan & Cheetah), we are playing a crucial role in speeding up grid parity.