Raytron’s innovations for tabbing wire

PV ribbon performance indicators are all important in their own right. The type of copper and its purity determine the electrical conductivity of the material and the maximum degree of flexibility that can be achieved with the ribbon.

1. Innovations in photovoltaic ribbon substrates

Raytron is original in using CCA instead of copper as the base material for photovoltaic ribbons, which is a great advantage in terms of cost. If you do not require high efficiency of light conversion, CCA PV Ribbon would be a good choice.

Because CCA is much lighter than Copper, the price of CCA ribbon per meter is at least 30% lower than Copper. And there are no major problems with other performance, except for the point of light conversion efficiency.

Let us take an MBB Ribbon as an example.

2. Innovation in Mechanical Properties of Photovoltaic Ribbons

The high elongation of the tabbing wire is important to prevent solder joint failures between the busbar and the interconnecting ribbon. Such failures can occur due to the elongation/tension generated by changes in temperature oscillations during the operation of the solar panel. The continuous and sometimes particularly intense daily temperature oscillations during the lifetime of the solar panel put the solder joints to the test during the lifetime of the solar panel (25 years on average).

Two parameters that are critical to most tabbing wire manufacturers are curvature and yield strength. Many PV ribbon manufacturers find it difficult to obtain a high level of ribbon softness while maintaining straightness. Achieving sufficient softness and low curvature can mean the difference between winning and losing a supply contract. Manufacturers must therefore strive to improve their rolling, annealing, tinning and material handling techniques to meet the increasing product performance specifications.

3. light reflecting ribbon

Because the part of the solar cell covered by the PV ribbon cannot absorb sunlight. In order to improve the efficiency of light utilization. Raytron has introduced the light reflecting ribbon. It is silver-plated on the front side and has a longitudinal groove structure embossed into them. This structure reflects the light incident on the ribbon at an angle to the inner surface of the module’s glass layer and projects it back onto the cell surface after total reflection at the glass-air interface. The captured light allows the module to generate additional increased power. It can theoretically increase the module efficiency by about 2%.

4. Industry barriers for photovoltaic ribbon

There are 3 main barriers to tabbing wire, namely capital, difficulty in cost control, and high R&D requirements.

(1) capital barriers: photovoltaic welding tape raw materials for copper, tin alloy, and other metals, the required investment in liquidity is large, forming a certain capital threshold.
(2) cost control barriers: new entrants are difficult to achieve effective cost control, in the production of the link may be insufficient yield, and it is difficult to achieve the same product quality as mainstream enterprises.
(3) R & D capacity barriers: the new iteration of photovoltaic welding belt requires the welding belt manufacturing enterprises to have the corresponding R & D capacity and R & D investment, new entrants in the absence of a complete R & D system, and core technology capabilities in the case of market elimination risk are greater.

The industry concentration will be further improved under the screening mechanism of superiority and inferiority.
Photovoltaic industry structure upgrade trend, photovoltaic ribbon performance improvement to become the future development needs. With the continuous development of the photovoltaic ribbon industry, enterprises with insufficient financial strength, weak cost control ability, and backward product development technology will be eliminated from the market.
Companies with relative advantages, such as Raytron. On the one hand, they can consolidate the quality of their products by means of technical process optimization. On the other hand, they have the financial ability to actively develop new products with better performance in response to the trend of price changes in the product market. Eventually, they will gain more market share. It is expected that the market share of the head enterprises will remain stable or increase in the future, and the competition pattern will be positive.