Deeply Interpretation

Along with the subsidy-free grid parity policy’s release of National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration, PV module power is upgrading unremittingly to meet the demand of the era of subsidy-free grid parity. With the rapid technology innovation, the diversity of technology type and power class of PV module increases gradually among manufacturers over time. On May 15th, 2020, Jinko Solar launches its latest PV module with 580W maximum power and 21.6% efficiency. It indicates, to some extent, a rise of competition in production capacity and performance of PV module. Most mainstream manufacturers launch their high-efficient modules one after another. Under this circumstance, more and more investors and EPCs pay great attention to high-efficient modules especially after the release of Jinko Solar’s latest product. Therefore, the topic about how high-efficient modules achieve a lower LCOE in PV system will spark a heated discussion on a wide-range power escalation.

In order to fairly and objectively compare the performance of the three modules applied to the project, TÜV NORD selected and analyzed the same project site as comparison condition. The purpose is to limit the uncertain factors of evaluation results under the conditions of the same geographical location, type of power plant, meteorological conditions, on-grid electricity price, and tax policy. For the convenience of comparison, Golmud in Qinghai is chosen as the project site. The annual irradiation of this area reaches up to 2195 hours, which belongs to the first-class light area in China. The annual temperature is low, average 6.69 degrees centigrade annually. And the ground of PV area is relatively flat.

Combined with TÜV NORD's analogy analysis of existing projects on the market, the initial investment costs of the three module solutions can be estimated and deduced, including the costs of pre-project development, EPC and grid connection. Then, by inputting Jinko 530/535W module’s pan-file into the PV Syst software, the first year’s power generation can be calculated through simulation. At the same time, in order to eliminate the loss of the abandoned light rate and achieve a uniform power generation, we uniformly set the DC/AC ratio as 1.1. In addition, it is also assumed that the 3 cases have the same degradation and OM cost. In conclusion, the results are as follows:

Under the established unified DC capacity, land availability and module price, the case 1 of Jinko 530/535W module has great advantages over case 2 and 3, such as LCOE and IRR, which mainly reflects in the following aspects:

1. Tilling Ribbon, multi-bus bar technology leads to a higher power and higher efficiency. For the all system, higher power module can reduce the number of strings in the condition of same DC/AC ratio. Likewise, the cost of corresponding DC cables, PV mounts, combiner boxes and their installation, even the land of PV will be cut down accordingly. The more efficient module with tracker designed will increase the power generation and reduce the mounting system area. So the cost per watt is decreased, especially for the commonly used 2P tracker.
2. 2. In the design, the lower open circuit voltage can increase module numbers per string, which will reduce the number of strings in the system, as well as the corresponding tracker, cables, and installation costs. Thereby the total cost of the project can be cut down.
3. 3. Jinko Solar is known for its high-level production lines in the industry. The failure rate and dispersion rate of production lines are relatively low, resulting in the low mismatch rate in of 1500V DC part. High-quality and high-reliable module can greatly improve the inverter MPPT tracking efficiency and result, achieving higher inverter’s output.

Auditing from the results of this evaluation, Jinko 530/535W module has certain market competitive advantages technically and economically.

With the gradual development of grid parity policy, on the side of PV system, it is also possible to reduce LCOE by optimizing the system design in order to maximize the benefits of the project. On one hand, we can even dilute the cost of inverters, medium voltage systems and cables by improving the capacity ratio of the inverters. On the other hand, the gradual improving of PV array’s size and distribution have reduced the related cable costs, installation costs, maintenance costs and the impact of shielding on power generation. What’s more, the earth leveling is getting less and less. The 200kW+ multi-channel string inverter will inevitably reduce the mismatch loss, then improve the overall power generation. In addition, more and more digital products are also applied, such as the latest module-level monitoring system developed by TÜV NORD. From the high-precision data collection by front-end sensor, to the intelligent analysis by back-end machine learning algorithm, it can accurately locate the inefficient components on the spot and estimate the loss of power generation. Thereby, this application saves manpower operation and maintenance costs, improving detection efficiency, and has a profound influence on the project's internal rate of return.