Australian shipments of Jinko 400Wp+ Cheetah modules to commence in January

JinkoSolar will begin shipping its new high-powered module series to an unnamed Australian project in January 2019. The Cheetah series couples a number of high efficiency cell and module concepts, however most notably is uses larger wafers. This makes Cheetah one of the first large scale manufacturing operations to apply what is increasingly being accepted as one of the next big PV technology trends.

Jinko describes Cheetah as “the world’s highest-performing, commercially mass-produced monofacial module.” The larger wafer, and therefore cell, size helps deliver a power output above 400Wp on a 72-cell format.

“JinkoSolar proposes a product based on mature and proven technologies,” the company’s statement reads. “[By] just enlarging the wafer surface without modifying the overall cell and module manufacturing steps.”

The larger cells boost module power output by 8Wp, in comparison Jinko’s previous equivalent module. Bigger wafers result also in a bigger module, increased by 23mm in length and 10mm in width in full cell and 52mm and 10mm in half-cut, for a 15W boost.

Half cut cells deliver increased shading tolerance and an improved temperature coefficient of -0.37%C. With the higher power output, Jinko reports that BOS costs can be reduced by 6% and energy density increased by 3%.

“Australia is known to feature high labor costs, and BOS takes up a large share of the utility project cost. High power Cheetah modules are able to significantly reduce the quantity of panels to satisfy a certain capacity, therefore reducing the labor cost and BOS in order to reduce the CAPEX and improve the LCOE and IRR of utility solar projects,” a Jinko spokesperson informed pv magazine in Australia in a statement.

Jinko says that the Cheetah is also well suited to Australian residential rooftop applications, with roof space increasingly becoming a constraining factor as average PV array capacities have increased.

“High power panels like Cheetah will be a cost effective way to pursue high energy yield from residential and commercial rooftops.”

The Cheetah Series module efficiency can reach a peak of 19.88%.

JinkoSolar is supplying the 255 MW Sunraysia Solar Farm, currently being developed by the Maoneng Group, with its Cheetah series. Decmil Australia Pty Ltd is acting as EPC on Sunraysia.