Maxeon’s Air technology platform brings solar to previously inaccessible roof spaces.
Maxeon Solar Technologies has released its new Maxeon Air technology platform.
The company said the platform enables it to produce frameless, thin, lightweight and conformable solar panels with efficiency and performance ratings that are equivalent to standard solar panels. The platform is the result of five years of research, development and testing.
Maxeon said its new Air solar panels can be adhered directly to rooftops without the need for racking or other mounting systems. Because of their adhesive, lightweight nature, the technology will initially target installations on rooftops that are not engineered to support the weight of conventional solar systems. In Europe, where Maxeon Air will first launch, the company estimated an unserved annual market for low-load roofs of more than 4 GW.
The Air panels do not use metal frames and contain no glass, resulting in an install load of roughly 6 kg/m². The product essentially appears to be a solar panel sticker, with Maxeon saying that the integrated adhesive layer enables installation directly on the roof surface, without racking, anchors, or ballast. This will enable installation on uneven rooftops.
The company said that the cells within the panels include a solid metal foundation, along with stress-relieved cell interconnects. It said these will protect against corrosion and enable fault-tolerant circuits that allow energy flow, even with cracked cells. Additionally, the panels feature an efficiency rating of 20.9%, a low power-temperature coefficient, shade tolerance, wide spectral response, and hot-spot resistance.
The product will become widely available in the first quarter of 2022.
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More articles from Tim Sylvia
‘Efficiency and Performance ratings’ are not an issue with current non-framed ‘semi-flexible’ panels. The issue is durability and lifespan, exposed to weather – possibly including hail.
I wonder, will Maxeon be able to guarantee these panels with the same kind of 25-year warranty which we have all come to expect from aluminum-framed glass panels?
If so, then they are a game changer – no racking could save a lot on installation costs, even though the panel-to-panel wiring would still need conduit installation.
It would be good to know details about thermal conductivity through the panel and whether it would be viable to adhere them to the water heating mats used for pool heating. That would simultaneously cool the panels and heat the pool water.
Dust cleaning arrangements will be much appreciated. Presently,cleaning panels costs, and also lowers output
Is it the same Maxeon that was manufacturing cells for SunPower? If that is so then effeciency is not a problem but durability sure is. But with ETFE coating it is possible to extend both effeciency and durability to the extent of normal glass panels. Semi flexible solar panels with PET lamination has a maximum life of 5 -7 years . Lot remains to be seen on both affordability and durability in the long run.
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