JinkoSolar’s Cheetah Series: The Ultra High Performance Era Has Begun

Driven by the rapid industry transformation, continuous technology evolution and increasingly complex market demands of the solar landscape in recent years, JinkoSolar has utilized its technical leadership to create cutting-edge technologies of tomorrow. Presented for the first time during SNEC 2018 in Shanghai, JinkoSolar Cheetah module is the world’s highest-performing, commercially mass-produced monofacial module, bringing the industry into the new age of PV 4.0 with mainstream module output of 400Wp. Cheetah series has created a new benchmark for ultra-high performing modules with its industry leading performance in metrics such as output, limited degradation, shade tolerance, and durability.

Efficacy of the solution

Cheetah modules have been designed to achieve grid parity thanks to its ultra-high module efficiency. Cheetah enters a new paradigm. New wafer size, new cell and module designs will keep pushing power results higher, even above 400Wp. The trend for Cheetah Series is to become mainstream products in the near future and Jinko Customers will benefit of it, significantly saving PV system cost with higher energy generation. 72-Cell Cheetah modules combined with Jinko Half-Cut Cell technology will reach 400Wp with conversion efficiency up to 19.88%

Sustainability of the solution

Once again Jinko proposes a product based on mature and proven technologies available at Jinko’s GW manufacturing scale; just enlarging the wafer surface without modifying the overall cell and module manufacturing steps, thus relying on the well-established quality protocols implemented on Jinko’s total production.

The maximum benefit of Jinko Cheetah Series is achieved while combining it with the HC technology. In this way not only the performance of the PV module is increased, but also its reliability thanks to the lower solar cell current and related lower heat losses. The combination of Cheetah and HC technologies also has improved the temperature coefficients to -0.37%/°C, consequently boosting the high performance of PV modules even in extreme environmental conditions by almost 2%-3% compared to standard full-cell solutions.

Degree of innovation

Cheetah Series modules are manufactured using larger wafers and Mono PERC cells, thus module peak power is increased by 8Wp compared to the previous generation of PV modules. Cheetah cells increased in both length and width by 2mm. Respectively, the Cheetah module length and width increase 23mm and 10mm with average 8Wp power up. Cheetah HC length and width increase 52mm and 10mm with average 15Wp power up.

Furthermore, by combining the Cheetah technology with the advantageous Half-Cell module configuration, module power can be increased by additional 7Wp and the entire system can benefit from the higher shading losses mitigation as a positive side effect, resulting in higher yields when the module is partially covered.

Economic impact

The possibility to use modules with higher Wp class can significantly reduce BOS costs and LCOE consequently, fostering the pathway to reach grid parity. Cheetah solution generates significant BOS savings for utility scale PV projects because the number of modules for a given peak power is reduced by 6%, thus labor costs and mounting structure amounts are also decreased proportionally. Moreover, comparing an installation with Jinko Mono PERC and Jinko’s new Cheetah Half-Cell PV Modules, the area needed for the PV array is reduced by approximately 3%, fully utilizing the economic advantage of a rooftop system and maximizing the power output from the roof space. Land occupation and land preparation costs are also reduced consequently.