China solar giant Trina has launched a new high powered, high efficiency rooftop PV module designed specifically for the Australian market, where households are squeezing as much generating capacity on their roofs as possible to fill the home batteries they are installing at a record-shattering rate.
Trinasolar launched the Vertex S+ 515 watt (W) module at the Smart Energy Conference in Sydney on Wednesday, a move the company says was in direct response to Australian installer feedback.
“Because of the Cheaper Home Battery program, everyone… wants to install maximum battery size in their house and, of course, they need to install more solar, to [fill] the battery,” says Edison Zhou, the head of Australia at Trinasolar Asia Pacific.
“Last year, we launched a 475 W panel for the Australia market, but [by the end of the year] the installers said they needed an even higher power-class, higher efficiency product.
“So after the New Year holiday, our [research and development] team started to design this new product for the Australia market,” Zhou told Renew Economy, on the sidelines of the conference. “It’s very fast. In just one quarter we have [the finished product].
“This allows for greater system capacity within a given footprint, while maintaining flexibility in system design depending on inverter selection.”
The module is built on the company’s latest n-type i-TOPCon ultra cell architecture and delivers efficiency of 24.7 per cent within a standard rooftop module footprint of 1842mm x 1134mm (approximately 2.09m²), resulting in higher energy yield per square metre.
Its design incorporates the zero-busbar and zero-gap technologies that Trinasolar says help enhance efficiency and minimise electrical losses. It also ises high reliability light double glass which is less prone to micro-cracks and scratches on the backside.
A lower voltage design also enables more flexible string sizing, meaning that installers can optimise system layouts across a range of inverter configurations, providing greater design flexibility – especially in situations where system configuration is constrained by rooftop layout or electrical limits.
Zhou says that Trinasolar is always looking to the Australian market to help guide its innovation and its future product design, particularly in the residential and commercial rooftop markets.
“Australia is always leading the technology, always pushing us to continue to develop our product innovation,” Zhou told Renew Economy on Wednesday.
“So that’s why we really appreciate the Australian market – they always just push the manufacturer to do more, to develop our technology, which is good for us, too.”
The Vertex S+ 515W module is now available for preorder and is expected to be available in Australia from early in the third quarter, subject to final certification and product listing requirements.
Modules will come with a product warranty of up to 25 years and 30 years power warranty.
The timing is good, because – as Renew Economy reported on Wednesday – the Australian home battery boom is fuelling a parallel boom and more records in rooftop solar installations, with 442 megawatts (MW) of new small-scale PV capacity registered nationwide in April – a 31 per cent month-on-month jump and and the strongest month in STC history, according to SunWiz.
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Sophie Vorrath & Joshua S. Hill
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