On May 24th–26th, SNEC, the most prestigious PV event in the world, was held in Shanghai. At the event, Crown was interviewed by IN-EN.com. 

2023 is the year in which N-type cell technology will start developing in full gear. The players in the industry have unveiled their N-type products and hundreds of GW of capacity are being developed. The PV industry chain is ready, including upstream sectors such as polysilicon, wafers, cells and modules, and other sectors such as backsheets, encapsulation film and silver paste. The PV industry of China is now wading into the era of N-type cells. 

But how will the PV industry quickly accomplish technology iteration? What technological pain spots will there be in the era of N-type cells? How will enterprises weather the impacts of technology iteration? With these questions, IN-EN.com and PV-2005 interviewed the relevant supervisors of Crown, who gave their answers. 

The PV industry is a complete industry chain in which the cooperation of the both the upstream and downstream sectors is required when any technology is generated, developed and escalated to a mainstream technology in the industry. Besides, the PV industry is a very refined industry in which technology upgrading and iteration is achieved through gradual technological advancement in a process from quantitative change to qualitative change. 

This is exactly the case with the N-type cell technology, a hot spot in the industry. Many people may have turned their attention to cells and modules, focusing on the conversion efficiency of TOPCon or HJT cells and modules, while ignoring the fact that the improvement of cell and module efficiency is actually the final result. In this process, silver paste, encapsulation film and backsheets are equally important, and they also need technological upgrading and iteration in the era of N-type cells. 

According to an officer of Crown, N-type cells have many advantages such as high conversion efficiency, high bifacial rate, low degradation and low temperature coefficient, but the special structure of N-type cells imposes more rigorous requirements for the PID resistance, corrosion resistance, water resistance and adhesive strength of the encapsulating material. 

The encapsulating material used for P-type modules does not meet the requirements for N-type cells. To upgrade the PV cell module from P-type to the more efficient N-type, suitable encapsulating material must be developed, and an encapsulation solution suitable for N-type cells must be designed. This is a realistic problem confronted by the entire industry. 

With six core technologies, Crown pioneers the upgrading of encapsulation technology 

There are many sub-sectors in the PV industry, and each has its own leading enterprise. The leading enterprise in environmentally friendly fluorine-free BO backsheets is unquestionably Crown. 

Founded in 2007, Crown is national high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D, production and sales of new energy-based composite film. The solar backsheets of Crown are widely used in solar cell modules, and the company can currently supply 50GW of modules. Its shipment amount of environmentally friendly fluorine-free BO backsheets ranks first in the world. 

After years of investment and technological advancement, Crown has obtained over 130 invention patents and other patents protected by proprietary intellectual property rights, and has developed six core patented technologies in the area of new energy-based cell encapsulating material, including functional high polymer film, special adhesive, material interface treatment, material optical design, precision coating and functional material dispersion. 

In the area of encapsulating materials, Crown has pioneered the technological upgrading of the industry several times. In 2012, it launched the world's first environmentally friendly fluorine-free BO backsheet. In 2014, it successfully developed the world's first 1,500V solar backsheet and achieved its large-scale application. In 2019, it invented the black high reflectance backsheet. In 2022, it launched the world's first HJT cell mesh film. 

On May 24th during SNEC, Crown obtained "witness testing laboratory" certification from DEKRA. It is safe to say that the technological R&D strength that Crown has cultivated over many years of efforts has been recognized. 

Creating N-type cell solutions through the best possible encapsulation technology

Now, the PV industry has come to yet another crossroads of technology iteration. However, the upgrading of PV module encapsulating material is not easy. In the critical period of technology iteration, Crown was the first enterprise to present an overall solution for N-type cell encapsulating material, once again pioneering the upgrading of PV encapsulation technology. Crown had wise foresight regarding N-type cell encapsulation. As early as 2017, it worked with enterprises that possessed advanced N-type cell technology such as SHARP, LG and REC to develop overall solutions for encapsulating materials such as BO high-efficiency backsheets, conductor base material, mesh film and high-efficiency encapsulation film exclusive to N-type cells, thereby solving the problems of TOPCon, HJT and IBC cell encapsulation, and achieving mass production. 

POE film makes N-type cell encapsulation more reliable

As Crown has noted, POE film is superior to EVA film in terms of water blocking, water resistance, corrosion resistance and PID resistance, making it more suitable for N-type module encapsulation. In the module manufacturing process, POE film is very likely to cause such problems as low crosslinking efficiency and slips in the lamination process. Therefore, Crown optimized the material formula and process design, and enhanced the slip prevention and crosslinking degree in the module lamination process. 

Actinia mesh film intensively reduces the cost of HJT modules

The key elements in HJT module encapsulation are adhesive strength, water resistance, UV blocking, low modulus and busbar-free soldering. Therefore, Crown proposed the solution of Actinia mesh film + POE film. Actinia mesh film improves the adhesion between the busbar-free cell and encapsulation film, enhances light transmittance, adhesive strength and water resistance, and reduces the low-temperature silver paste consumption of the HJT cell by up to 45%, thereby intensively reducing the cost of HJT modules. 

The POE film + BO backsheet solution enhances the economic efficiency of IBC modules

Difficulties in IBC module encapsulation: the front side has no metallic busbar, the appearance is subject to high requirements and the backside wire soldering is subject to high corrosion resistance requirements. Therefore, Crown proposed the POE film + BO backsheet solution, which is characterized by excellent PID resistance, strong corrosion resistance and a pleasant appearance. 

In the area of N-type cell encapsulation technology, Crown pursues the best possible solutions to problems in N-type cell encapsulation in such aspects as technology, solutions and products so as to lay a solid technological foundation for N-type cells. 

As the foremost manufacturer of environmentally friendly fluorine-free BO backsheets and the expert of N-type cell encapsulating materials, Crown continues to create value for new energy-based cell encapsulating materials in the critical period of technology iteration and industry upgrading, and contributes to the green development of the industry. 

Source: IN-EN.com/PV-2005