Maxeon Air: Frameless, Lightweight Stick-On Solar Panels

Maxeon Solar Technologies has provided a peek at what it calls a “disruptive technology platform” – Maxeon Air solar panels.

Across Australia and the world there are millions of commercial building rooftops that could be generating clean electricity by harvesting solar energy. But not all these rooftops are capable of hosting solar panels.

It’s been previously reported as high as 70 per cent of industrial roofs in Australia are being built  to the minimum specification¹. To strengthen these “slender roofs” enough to enable installation of solar panels is costly, and in some cases simply not viable.

This is a market that Maxeon is banking on with its Air modules.

Maxeon Air Solar Panel Features And Specifications

There’s not a huge amount of information available as yet, but here’s what we know:

• Use of Maxeon IBC solar cells – already installed on 600,000 homes, businesses and solar farms around the world according to the company.
• 4mm thick.
• 20.9% panel efficiency.
• Low power temperature coefficient (not specified), shade tolerance and wide spectral response.
• Frameless – “peel and stick” design.
• Flexible, but Maxeon uses the term “conformable”. Perhaps flexibility is quite limited.
• Hot spot resistance – particularly important given the panels will be adhered directly to rooftops.
• Installed weight of around 6 kg/m²  – less than half of conventional systems.
• Wattage: not specified.

Maxeon points out that as solar panels have increased in size (both in capacity and in physical dimensions) and module prices have dropped, the costs associated with transporting and installing these large modules has increased in terms of proportion of total system cost.

“With Maxeon Air technology, we can now develop products that reduce these costs while opening up completely new market opportunities such as low-load commercial rooftops,” said Jeff Waters, CEO of Maxeon Solar. Technologies.

Maxeon Air solar panels will be used in selected projects in Europe in the second half of this year and general product availability is scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.

According to Maxeon, there is an estimated 4GW unserved annual market for low-load roofs in Europe alone. But aside from commercial applications, the company sees promise for the Air in residential rooftop, floating PV and e-mobility applications.

The cost of Maxeon Air isn’t mentioned, but like any SunPower Maxeon product and given the type of product it is, they’ll like be quite expensive. It’s not clear if the Air will also carry “SunPower” name and it wasn’t noted in any of the limited information currently available.

Maxeon Air won’t be the first Sunpower Maxeon “flexible” solar panel – there’s an existing product line with modules up to 170W capacity.

Sunman Energy eArc Panels

Another frameless stick-on flexible solar panel already available in Australia is Sunman Energy’s eArc, previously called eArche. Sunman Energy’s founder and chief technology officer is Shi Zhengrong, who also founded module manufacturer Suntech.

Frameless eArc solar panels are currently available in capacities of up to 375W. Examples of eArc solar panel installations in Australia include on the curved rooftop of the library in Noosaville and on Byron Bay’s solar train.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/maxeon-air-panels-mb2002/