Axitec Launches 540W Module For India, Focus on Large Projects

AXITEC, one of the few German Solar PV brands that has survived the competition from China has an interesting approach to manage operations. With its headquarters and core engineering team in Stuttgart in Germany supporting the manufacturing capacity of 1 GW, which itself is spread across key markets including EU, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and India. Besides solar PV, the firm also has a presence in storage and charging now.

Backed by 20 years of experience leading to a presence in 70 + countries, AXITEC has 6 international subsidiaries and sales partners in strategic locations across the globe to service key markets. AXITEC likes to highlight that after the first year, it guarantees an output of 97% of the original nominal output and thereafter a maximum output reduction of 0.5% per year. As a result, customers still have a performance guarantee of at least 85% of the original nominal output after 25 years.

The firm’s latest offering is a 540 W module, coming from its manufacturing facility in Asia. Coming with a 15 year manufacturer guarantee, the new module promises to make a significant impact, especially for large project developers.

The  AXIpremium XXL 540Wp comes with the following features according to Axitec.

1. Technology Base : 182 mm Wafer
2. Module : 144 MONO cells with PERC Technology
3. Colour : Silver/White ( For India market )
4. Perfect solution for Commercial and Utility-scale installations
5. Max System Voltage : 1500V – Helps to reduce BoS costs ( with lesser number of strings and inverters )
6. Efficiency : up to 21%
7. Economic Ratio : Very good ratio of Performance, Quality and investment
8. Certificates: BIS, IEC 61215, IEC61730, IEC61701, IEC62804 ( under process ) and ISO certified

The firm has gone with the 182mm (M10) cell group size for the AXIpremium XXL, which has 108 cells with the output power range of 400W to 415W, and 144 cells with the output power range of 525W to 545W.

This, the firm contends, is because of the present technology, where wafer size bigger than 182 mm risks the increased possibility of microcracks and subsequently lower power generation and hotspots causing the module to fail.

With Isc around 13 Amps as compared to other brands with a higher current rating. These higher currents lead to higher power losses = I2R losses which will lower the output of modules.

The Multi busbar technology minimizes the distances electrons would have to travel, thereby again minimizing Power losses. Adding to that, when transmission distance goes down, micro-cracks losses also reduce considerably thereby improving the cell efficiency.

The firm asserts that it has gone with 10 busbars because it understand that String power loss in a module falls exponentially only up to 9-10 busbars, beyond which the loss becomes almost constant. Also, the relative Silver paste consumption comes down exponentially up to the usage of 10-11 busbars only beyond which the decrease in consumption becomes negligible.

Going beyond 10 busbars would have led to a rise in metal shading losses thereafter, says the firm. With AXITEC 540 Wp modules, AXITEC promises lower BoS costing for  bigger-sized projects – a lesser number of inverters, cables, land area, pile foundation and civil work. The transportation costs too go down and O&M wont require much of an effort comparatively.