TCL SunPower Global said its TCL Solar C2 back-contact module range has landed in Europe and is open for order through the brand's distributor network. First deliveries begin in the UK this week, and the company said a wider European rollout follows in the weeks ahead.
The platform was unveiled in June at SNEC in Shanghai and at Intersolar Europe in Munich. The company said the range is intended for residential, commercial, industrial and ground-mounted installations.
Two configurations share the same back-contact cell. C2 S Black, for residential and small commercial roofs, is rated at up to 495 W and 23.8% efficiency. C2 L and C2 L UPP, for larger commercial and utility-scale projects, reach up to 670 W and 24.8% efficiency, with bifaciality of up to 85% on the L and L UPP variants.
The panels use a full-screen gapless back-contact design with no metal busbars on the front. The company said the layout adds more than 5% usable power density per panel against a conventional front-contact arrangement of the same size, because more active cell surface faces the sun. It cites a temperature coefficient of -0.26%/°C and an annual degradation rate below 0.35%, which it said keeps a panel at roughly 88.85% of its original output after 30 years. Depending on the model, modules carry up to a 25-year product warranty and a 30-year power warranty.
Steven Zhang, general manager of TCL SunPower Global, said the company had scaled up production over the past year, including through the July completion of its acquisition of DAS Solar's back-contact cell and module manufacturing operations, and that the work builds on more than 1,600 back-contact patents and four decades of photovoltaic manufacturing experience. Karin Alberto Burkhardt, the company's director of PV products, said the busbar-free cell design, rather than a coating or firmware, produces the efficiency gain by exposing more active cell area to the sun, and that on the residential S Black model the same design gives a uniform black finish. The company said the range is available now through authorized distributors in Europe, and that installers and commercial buyers can locate a partner through the distributor finder at tclsolar.com.
