Graphene "black technology" will benefit China's photovoltaic industry

In recent years, driven by policy support, China's photovoltaic market has exploded, the cost of photovoltaic power generation has dropped rapidly, and the goal of user-side photovoltaic level price online is gradually being realized, and the technological innovation of photovoltaic industry is the endogenous driving force to achieve this goal. The use of graphene "black technology" material will make China's photovoltaic industry benefit.

Recently, Zhengxin Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Zhengxin Optoelectronics”) announced that graphene “Black Technology” has been industrialized for the first time on photovoltaic modules, and high-tech series products such as graphene coatings have made their debut. Compared with conventional component products, the transmittance of graphene high-efficiency components prepared by graphene coating technology is increased to 94.3%, component output power can be increased by 0.5% to 1%, and its unique self-cleaning function can be reduced. Operation and maintenance costs, in fact, this is not the first graphene industry line in China. Recently, the first production line of Shandong Hengli Tianneng New Material Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Hengli Tianneng”) solar energy project has also been put into production. "The situation in the industry is very good." Wang Yingchun, president of Zhengxin Optoelectronics, believes that with the innovation of China's graphene products and the advantages of the industry chain, it will surely take the lead in the future high-tech industry competition.

In 2018, China's photovoltaic industry continues to show a steady upward trend. The main direction of technology development is how to improve power generation efficiency and reduce costs. Graphene coating is an advanced technology in line with the development of photovoltaic industry technology. “The biggest feature of graphene is that it can improve the light transmittance of glass and the self-cleaning ability of glass. It will not lose the light transmittance due to the improvement of self-cleaning property, which provides a breakthrough technical solution for the photovoltaic industry. Graphene coating technology also brings users the improvement of power generation efficiency and the drastic reduction of operation and maintenance costs," said Wang Dong, general manager of Zhengxin Optoelectronics Technology Quality.

Researcher Li Junfeng, former director of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy Research and International Cooperation, said that the unique self-cleaning ability of graphene coating technology allows end users to harvest more power, reduce the cost of component cleaning and maintenance, and reduce the hot spot effect of components. risks of.

According to Wang Yingchun, Zhengxin Optoelectronics has developed graphene 12-gate conventional, graphene 12-gate double-glass, graphene 5-gate conventional and double-glass and other graphene photovoltaic modules. At present, the company has initially produced 500MW graphene coated glass modules capacity plans to further expand capacity to 2GW by the end of this year, reaching 5GW by the end of 2019.

In the process of technological innovation, the deep cooperation of industry, academia and research is the key to the rapid industrial application of advanced technology. According to Dr. Lu Peng of China Science and Technology University, the graphene coated glass technology is the result of cooperation between Zhengxin Optoelectronics and the University of Science and Technology of China. Graphene is a magical material and has a wide application prospect in the field of solar energy. Glass coating technology is only one of the applications, and it is also the first technology for graphene in the photovoltaic industry to realize industrial application. In the future, the two sides will further cooperate in the back glass of double-sided components, double-sided coating on the front side of the glass, and high-efficiency batteries, and develop more efficient new photovoltaic products with graphene as the core.

Lu Fang, Secretary General of the Photovoltaic Professional Committee of the China Renewable Energy Society, suggested that Zhengxin Optoelectronics should continue to explore 5 aspects of graphene coating technology: optimize coating formulation to optimize coating refractive index and further improve optical gain and component power. Study the graphene coating process, work hard to form the molybdenum structure and the nano-structured gradient refractive index, and prepare a better anti-reflection coating; continue to study the performance change of graphene oxidation or reduction state, and improve the super-hydrophilic self-cleaning performance. Graphene modification enhances superhydrophobic properties, develops an easy-to-clean coating suitable for drought-scarce areas, and studies technologies combined with titanium-based photocatalysts to form a wider range of photocatalyst technologies.

"Self-adjustment" in the photovoltaic industry

China's PV industry has experienced ups and downs and thrilling developments. Some of the photovoltaic companies that started their business in the early years have now gone bankrupt and reorganized or disappeared, and the remaining companies are the best in the industry. Insiders pointed out that it is these remaining PV companies that are constantly doing innovative things to avoid the fate of simple imitation and blind expansion, and to achieve stability until now.

The ultimate goal of PV technology advancement is ultimately to reduce the cost of photovoltaic power generation. Therefore, with the curiosity of graphene and the “question mark”, the China Economic Herald reporter conducted an in-depth exploration. Unlike some companies in the society that use graphene as a fashionable concept but have not been industrialized, Zhengxin Optoelectronics' new product is mainly based on the new photovoltaic modules superimposed by graphene coated glass and multi-main gate technology. It is a very important indicator.

It is understood that there are also photovoltaic glass self-cleaning technologies on the market, but they have not been popularized. The main reason is that this technology is self-cleaning at the expense of glass transmittance, and it is necessary to compare the coating process of conventional glass. Large adjustment, the process is immature, the quality is unstable, and the cost is too high. Zhengxin Optoelectronics' graphene coating process is not very different from conventional coated glass, and it adopts aqueous phase system coating solution, which is more environmentally friendly and easy to promote. Zhengxin Photoelectric Graphene Coating Glass has a light transmittance of over 94.3% and a plate hardness of more than 3H. The super-hydrophilic and photocatalytic effects ensure the self-cleaning effect of the glass.

Multi-main gate technology is recognized as a cost-effective technology in the industry. It not only improves component power, but also greatly reduces the amount of silver paste and reduces the loss caused by cracks. Zhengxin Optoelectronics 12 main grid technology is innovative in many aspects such as battery graphic design, component packaging and production process. The conduction distance of current on the fine gate is shortened, which reduces series resistance, thermal resistance and efficiency attenuation, and increases component power and life. However, the overall production cost has not increased substantially.

According to Wang Dong, on the basis of the traditional single and double glass module production process, Zhengxin Photoelectric Graphene Multi-Main Gate Module will have existing multi-main gate battery technology, graphene application technology PERC, N-type double-sided, black silicon battery process, etc. The integration of current cutting-edge technologies will add momentum to the industry's accelerated implementation of cost reduction and efficiency.

Speed up industrialization

Not only are new graphene products coming to the fore, but their industrialization process is also accelerating. Recently, the first production line of Hengli Tianneng Solar Energy Project was put into production. This is the first fully automated industrialized mass production of graphene organic solar optoelectronic devices (hereinafter referred to as “graphene OPV”) production line. Under the background of the high-quality utilization of graphene resources in Shandong, the industrial application of this new material has fallen.

“The current bottleneck in the graphene industry is that it is difficult to mass-produce and the price is high, resulting in insufficient supply of raw materials. The industrialized mass production of downstream products is almost blank.” Executive Director of China Hengli International Holdings Co., Ltd. (Hengli Tianneng Parent Company) Qian Dongwei admits that graphene OPV is only the first step in the application of Hengli Tianneng. In the future, there are still many directions in the application of downstream products.

“For example, graphene RO reverse osmosis membrane can be used to improve the efficiency of seawater desalination, improve the effect of sewage treatment, and be used for the recovery of oil spills at sea.” Qian Dongwei said, “The water treatment project invested by the group has been related to China. The port management department will cooperate to develop a graphene offshore oil recovery system."

The first fully automatic production of graphene OPV production line has been introduced, which means that the graphene products, which are called “black gold” and “king of new materials”, have finally solved this worldwide problem. Graphene, with its special physical structure and characteristics, will bring revolutionary changes in many fields， once mass production is bound to become the next trillion-dollar industry.

The price of graphene is very high. At present, the domestic price is above 2,000 yuan / gram, which is several times the price of gold. On the other hand, China's graphite ore reserves are more than 55 million tons, accounting for about 77% of the world's total. According to industry insiders, "China's graphene technology has gradually become a global leader, and both graphite raw materials and graphene technology have absolute say."

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.