(Yicai) June 20 -- The M6 size wafer-level silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell that Chinese photovoltaic giant Longi Green Energy Technology unveiled at the Intersolar Europe 2024 exhibition in Munich yesterday set a new efficiency world record.

Longi's commercial M6 size wafer-level silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell, certified by the authoritative certification institution of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy (Fraunhofer ISE) in Germany, achieved a PV conversion efficiency of 30.1 percent, the Xi'an-based company announced yesterday.

The M6 size wafer-level silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell beat the previous world record of 28.6% wafer-level tandem solar cell efficiency on M4 commercial size wafers in May last year, Longi noted.

"While continuously exploring the efficiency limits of tandem solar cells, Longi's research and development team started research on mass production technology for tandem solar cells last October, and in just six months, it overcame two key challenges: the preparation of large-area perovskite films in air and ultra-low-temperature metallization," said He Bo, R&D director of Longi's Central R&D Institute. 

The theoretical limit efficiency of monocrystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells is up to 43 percent, making them the next generation of ultra-high efficiency solar cells after monocrystalline silicon back-contact cells, Longi pointed out.

Longi's latest solar module Hi-MO9 has an efficiency of 24.4 percent. In only one month since the release of the product, the company received orders for close to 1 gigawatt, and the order backlog for next year exceeded 5 GW, She Haifeng, vice president of the company, recently told Yicai.

Overseas companies are the main clients placing orders for the Hi-MO9 modules, and 70 percent of them are European, She noted.

Editor: Futura Costaglione