As a result of module efficiency upgrades, the 22.45% efficiency band has been occupied by 2 companies since November, down from 3 in October and 4 in April. This reduction is due to the upgraded efficiency of SolarSpace’s TOPCon module in November. In the July 2024 edition, the collective ranking of these companies dropped from 19th to 20th, and then to 22nd in November 2024.
Shanghai-headquartered solar cell and module manufacturer Qn-Solar entered our listing in July 2023. Originally a project developer and EPC, the 2014-launched company also operates its own power plants and has been strongly expanding into the manufacturing field recently to reach 69 GW cell and 39 GW module capacity in 2023, according to the company’s website. It is promoting TOPCon modules with an efficiency of up to 22.45%, qualifying it for the shared 22nd position. Qn-Solar’s listed bifacial TOPCon product has a rated power of 580 W and is built on the 182-wafer format with 144 half-cells. Qn-Solar is also promoting a PERC module that qualifies with an efficiency of 21.57%, which earns it a place in our current listing at the 40th position. The PERC module has an output power of 670 W.
URECO is a manufacturer formed from the merger of 3 leading Taiwanese cell manufacturers – Neo Solar Power, Gintech and Solartech. The company offers products based on all 3 mainstream cell technologies – PERC, TOPCon and HJT. While PERC products were already part of our earlier listing, the modules based on the remaining 2 advanced cell technologies were included in our August 2023 edition. Named GLORY, the company’s TOPCon series is represented by its FBF580B8D model with an efficiency of 22.45%, which means it is the 2nd company to share the 22nd rank. URECO’s HJT module, with a rated efficiency of 22.44%, very narrowly misses the spot by 0.01%, thus putting it 2 ranks down at 24th. Called GLORY HELLO, the module is built with 120 half-cells of the 210 mm wafer format and has a power rating of 635 W.
Suntech’s module, which saw a change in April 2024, has remained unchanged since. The Ultra V Pro Plus module with 625 W was replaced with the lower-power 605 W Ultra V Pro. The latter is built with 132 half-cells, while the former had 156 half-cells. While its power output has changed, the module’s efficiency remains the same at 22.4%, as do its other characteristics, such as TOPCon cells and bifacial module technology. This module has moved to 25th place in October from 24th and holds this rank alone. Another product from Suntech featuring since July 2023 has an efficiency of 21.7%, is placed 35th, and is among the top efficiency products in the PERC category.
Kalyon PV, a vertically integrated PV manufacturer from ingot to module production headquartered in Turkey, debuted in March 2024 with its TOPCon module at rank 24, dropped to 25th in July, and then to 26th in October. The company, which has 4 factories and an R&D center, commenced production in 2019. Its TOPCon module, with 22.38% efficiency and 580 W power output, features M10 half-cut cell technology and a bifacial module design. Another module from Kalyon, listed in the PERC category until July, has since been delisted.
Yingli Solar, one of the early adopters of n-type wafer-based cell architectures, entered the list in November 2023 with its PANDA 3.0 PRO, a TOPCon module product that remains unaltered. The cells used in this module are made from its in-house 5 GW cell production capacity for TOPCon, while the company has 20 GW of module capacity, including PERC and TOPCon. The listed module is built with 156 half-cells. The bifacial module interconnected with MBB technology has an efficiency of 22.36% and a power output of 625 W. With Akcome’s delisting in January, Yingli moved up one rank to 27th from 28th, while another product from Yingli also earned a spot in our list in the PERC category in February 2022, which is now ranked 40th.
Part of the vertically integrated GCL Group, which is a global leader in silicon production for the solar industry, GCL System Integration (GCL SI) offers solar modules, battery storage products as well as full PV project solutions. In the July 2023 edition, we included 2 GCL SI module products from its GCL GEMINI series – one TOPCon and one PERC. However, the April 2024 list replaced the TOPCon GCL GEMINI series with GCL LOTUS without altering the key specs of the product, while the PERC range remained under the GCL GEMINI series. The most efficient product of this series, the GCL_NT10/72GDF, represents the company’s TOPCon range and has an efficiency of 22.3% and a power output of 575 W. The bifacial module is designed with 144 half-cut cells based on the 182 mm wafer format. In October, this module moved from 28th to 29th to share the rank with Qcells. GCL regained the 28th rank again in January. The number of companies sharing this position dropped from 3 to 2 in July, with REC’s move up.
Qcells re-entered our list in February 2024 with its TOPCon Q.TRON SMART product, which was replaced with a higher power Q.TRON variant already in March 2024. While its efficiency remains the same, the Q.TRON module delivers 35 W of additional power over the previous one. Interestingly, despite the power increase, the cell count has reduced from 120 to 108. This is only possible when adopting larger wafer formats. The current 108-cell configuration is most likely based on the M10 wafer format, half-cell and MBB module technology. According to the website, the module is available in the UK region. This module shares the 28th rank with GCL SI.
CECEP Solar Technology Zhenjiang is a Chinese cell and module producer founded in 2010 that operates around 4 GW of cell and 8 GW of module capacity, according to its website. CECEP’s TOPCon product is a High Efficiency series bifacial solar module made with 144 half-cells based on M10 n-type wafers. The product is rated with an efficiency of 22.1% and a power output of 570 W. While this module has had no changes to its specifications, the above changes moved it up a rank from 31st to 30th.
The remaining 20 products in the list feature efficiencies below 22%, of which 2 are HJT-based while the bulk are PERC modules. The number of PERC modules has been declining recently. In July, Kalyon PV’s PERC module, and thus the company itself, was delisted, followed by Tongwei Solar in September. October saw the delisting of a module each from Astronergy and Talesun, and JinkoSolar’s module was delisted in December. In total, 5 PERC modules have been delisted over H2-2024. In January 2025, 2 PERC modules were delisted, one each from Akcome and Risen Energy, reducing the total number of PERC modules in the list to 18.
Jinergy’s HJT module, which was updated in September 2023, is ranked 31st. Its efficiency of 21.85% is 0.17 percentage points higher than the previously listed product. Not just efficiency, the featured JNHM144-475 is a slightly larger module compared to the previous one, built with 144 cells, and thus has a higher power rating of 475 W. It is bifacial too, with a bifaciality of over 85%.
Meyer Burger is offering its HJT product with the same efficiency of 21.8% and a power rating of 390 W, listed at the 32nd position.
There are several module series available today with efficiencies slightly exceeding 21.5%, as high-efficiency cell architectures are not a must to reach that level, but in order to design products beyond 21.7%, cell technology is key.
As shown in our recent TOP SOLAR MODULES analysis report, PERC in general was unable to support efficiencies above 21.6% until the end of 2023. At the time, modules with efficiencies above 21.6% usually employed cells based on high-efficiency cell architectures such as IBC, TOPCon or HJT.
Of late, however, we have observed an increase in the number of companies reaching module efficiencies of up to 21.7% with PERC. Until November 2022, LONGi and Risen were part of this group. Canadian Solar joined the list of 21.7% efficiency PERC modules in January, Tongwei in February, DAS Solar in April, and Suntech in July 2023 – all of them ranked #33. However, Tongwei’s PERC module with shingled technology was delisted in September, reducing the number of companies sharing the rank at the time from 6 to 5. In the January 2025 edition, Risen Energy discontinued its PERC module, prompting its delisting, and further reducing the number of companies ranked 33rd to 4.
Following the order of rated power, the second module of Canadian Solar in this list, the HiKu7, is based on a 132-half-cell configuration with 210 mm wafer size and a rated power of 675 W. DAS Solar’s DAS-DH144PA module is based on a 144-cell and 182 mm wafer format. LONGi’s Hi-MO 5m module is built with 144 cells of 182 mm cell size, offering 560 W of power. Suntech’s Ultra V module has a 144-half-cell design based on the 182 mm wafer format and a rated power output of 560 W. As mentioned above, Tongwei’s shingled interconnection technology-based product with 21.7% efficiency and a power output of 430 W has been delisted as the company is not offering the module anymore.
In December 2024, JinkoSolar’s Tiger Pro module, previously ranked 39th with an efficiency of 21.68%, was delisted due to the unavailability of its datasheet on the company’s official website. This left Akcome's iChaser PERC module, with the same efficiency of 21.68%, rated power of 560 W, and a 144-cell design using 182 mm wafers, as the sole occupant of the 39th rank. However, in January 2025, the Akcome module was also delisted as its website was inaccessible. With Talesun’s PERC module delisted in October, the 41st rank was shared by GCL SI, Trinasolar, and JA Solar, all with an efficiency of 21.6%. Following JinkoSolar’s delisting in December, these 3 modules moved up to the 40th rank. By January 2025, with the reduction of 3 products, the ranking further shifted to 37th. GCL SI and Trinasolar’s modules share a power rating of 670 W, both featuring 132 half-cells of G12 size. In contrast, JA Solar’s DeepBlue 3.0, built with 156 half-cells of M10 size, has a lower power rating of 605 W.
The next 7 products, with an efficiency of 21.57%, share the 40th rank. Jinergy, Qn-Solar, Seraphim, Yingli and ZNShine leverage bifacial capabilities, while modules from SolarSpace and URECO are not specified. All these products are built with 132 half-cells of the 210 mm wafer format interconnected with MBB. Not just efficiency, these 7 products have the same rated power of 670 W due to the same wafer format and the count of half-cell strips.
EGing PV’s PERC product is the sole occupant of the current 47th rank, moving up from the 53rd place it had slipped to in April. It has a lower efficiency of 21.56%, but the power rating of 670 W is the same as the products from the group above.
The lowest efficiency of 21.5%, which is also the minimum threshold for inclusion in this list, is currently represented by 3 products at rank 48 – Runergy, Qcells, and CECEP. This edition sees an update from Qcells: a new high-power PERC module rated at 600 W, replacing the earlier 590 W version. While the efficiency remains unchanged at 21.5%, the power upgrade positions Qcells ahead of Runergy within this group, based on the alphabetical sorting method.
Summary
The latest TOP SOLAR MODULES listing, compiled in the first week of May 2025, features 50 high-efficiency products from 32 manufacturers, with no change in the total number of companies or modules. However, this edition does reflect a few efficiency and power updates that have impacted rankings. AIKO continues to lead the list with its ABC series module achieving 24.2% efficiency. LONGi holds the second position with its Hi-MO 9 module at 24.1%, a level it reached in March through a substantial 0.9% absolute efficiency gain. Maxeon also remains tied at this rank. The highest recorded efficiency stands at 24.2% for IBC modules, followed by 23.18% for HJT and 23% for TOPCon. Notably, Trinasolar has joined the 23% gang this month with its upgraded Vertex N module, contributing to reshuffling within the middle rankings. Meanwhile, Qcells updated its PERC module to a higher power class of 600 W. The listing continues to comprise 4 IBC, 8 HJT, 20 TOPCon, and 18 PERC modules.
Reports: If you want to learn more about the commercial module efficiencies of integrated module producers, please check our latest TOP SOLAR MODULES 2024 Report. This TaiyangNews TOP SOLAR MODULES 2024 report summarizes the key findings from over 24 editions published during 2023 and 2024 and analyzes the trends and developments for the different cell technologies (PERC, TOPCon, HJT, Back Contact) and listed companies (download the TOP SOLAR MODULES 2024 report for free here).
PS: If you have spotted a solar module somewhere that meets our criteria and is missing from this list, please send us the website link with the product specs to rajee.gattu@taiyangnews.info.
Disclaimer: TaiyangNews does not guarantee the reliability, accuracy or completeness of this TOP SOLAR MODULES Listings content. TaiyangNews does not accept responsibility or liability for any errors in this work
