Half Cut PV Cells

Half-cut cells provide several benefits over traditional solar cells. Most importantly, half-cut PV cells offer improved performance and durability. Performance-wise, half-cut cells can increase module efficiencies by a few percentage points. And in addition to better production numbers, half-cut cells are more physically durable than their traditional counterparts; because they are smaller in size, they’re more resistant to cracking.

How do half-cut PV cells improve panel performance?

1. Reduced resistive losses

One source of power loss when PV cells convert sunlight into electricity is resistive losses, or power lost during electrical current transport. PV cells transport current using the thin metal ribbons that cross their surface and connect them to neighboring cells and moving current through these ribbons leads to some energy lost. By cutting solar cells in half, the current generated from each cell is halved, and lower current flowing leads to lower resistive losses as electricity moves throughout cells and wires in a solar panel.

2. Higher shade tolerance

Half-cut cell modules are more resistant to the effects of shade than traditional PV modules. This is not due to the cells being cut in half, but rather a result of the wiring methods used to connect half-cut cells in a panel. In traditional PV module manufactured with full cells, the cells are wired together in rows, known as series wiring. In series wiring schemes, if one cell in a row is shaded and not producing energy, the entire row of cells will stop producing power. Standard panels typically have three separate paths of cells wired together, so shade on one cell of one row would eliminate a third of that panel’s power production. Half cut modules however have six separate paths, cutting losses on partial shaded rows.