As competition among photovoltaic companies intensifies, vertical integration is a direction many companies are striving for. This not only allows for better cost control, but also enables them to produce core products in-house, allowing them to integrate according to their own technological direction and thereby improve module efficiency.
Recently, Trina Solar's annual report mentioned black silicon technology, one of the technologies that helps improve module efficiency. Black silicon technology refers to adding a surface texturing process to address the defects of conventional texturing processes, such as high surface reflectivity and obvious line marks. This process reduces surface reflectivity, thereby improving the light absorption capacity of the silicon wafer and the efficiency of the cell.
Currently, black silicon technology is mainly divided into two types: dry black silicon and wet black silicon. The former has a stable and mature process, a uniform textured surface, and the highest efficiency improvement, but it requires additional costly equipment and processes. Limited by the high capital expenditure on equipment, its use is gradually decreasing. The latter has relatively lower additional costs and can achieve an efficiency improvement of 0.3%-0.5%, mainly used for polycrystalline silicon wafers cut with diamond wire and quasi-monocrystalline silicon. Therefore, it has attracted much attention from module manufacturers, and its usage rate is increasing.
Therefore, it is evident that black silicon technology plays a significant auxiliary role in improving the efficiency of photovoltaic modules, while its increase in module cost is not significant, making it one of the technologies that module manufacturers value highly. For highly vertically integrated companies, leveraging their own product advantages will lead to even more pronounced improvements in module efficiency.
