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26 Feb 2025
US photovoltaics company also agrees licensing deal with Talon PV and issues positive sales outlook for 2025.
First Solar, the US-headquartered company specializing in cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaics, has revealed it is suing Chinese rival JinkoSolar, one of the world’s largest producers of solar modules.
The litigation centers around the methods used to make tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) technology for crystalline silicon cells. TOPCon technology has been broadly adopted by the solar industry, but First Solar claims that Jinko is infringing its US patent 9,130,074.
Entitled “High-efficiency solar cell structures and methods of manufacture“, the patent describes an approach originally developed by TetraSun, the Silicon Valley solar startup acquired by First Solar back in 2013.
Contingency
In July last year, First Solar launched infringement investigations against several leading crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturers, and the firm’s general counsel Jason Dymbort now says:
“We’ve been clear that we will actively defend our intellectual property rights in the US and internationally. Unfortunately, our interaction with JinkoSolar has been unproductive and left us with no choice but to enforce our patent rights through legal action.
“Given the responses we received from other solar cell manufacturers in connection with our infringement investigations, we believe we have a strong TOPCon technology patent portfolio.
“We expect that our lawsuit against JinkoSolar will reiterate the need for TOPCon solar cell manufacturers to operate within the well-defined framework of intellectual property law.”
As things turned out, First Solar never ended up using the broader TetraSun technology in commercial products, announcing in 2016 that it had stopped working on the startup’s bifacial approach.
The acquisition had represented something of a contingency plan in the event that First Solar had not been able to improve the efficiency of its own CdTe modules as expected.
Talon PV deal
One company that does appear to have responded to First Solar’s investigations is US-based Talon PV, which has now signed a patent licensing agreement covering the TOPCon technology.
Talon’s n-type TOPCon cell manufacturing facility is scheduled to commence operations in the first quarter of next year, adding an anticipated 4 GW of domestic crystalline silicon solar cell production capacity in the US by the first quarter of 2027.
Adam Tesanovich, Talon’s CEO, commented: “Securing this license keeps us on track to produce American-made TOPCon cells next year, enabling the onshoring of a critical component of the crystalline silicon solar value chain.”
Jinko is yet to respond to the First Solar litigation in public, but recently highlighted its own “cutting-edge” n-type TOPCon technology, and “globally leading patent portfolio”.
Earlier this month the company said that its “Tiger Neo” n-type TOPCon modules, launched two years ago, had now completed shipments of 140 GW.
“In 2024 alone, Tiger Neo modules reached quarterly sales exceeding 20 GW, making them one of the world's best-selling module types for six consecutive quarters,” it claimed.
Jinko’s n-type TOPCon modules
Jinko has now introduced its third-generation n-type TOPCon Tiger Neo modules, offering a power output of up to 670 W, and what it says is the industry's first 495 W residential module, with a conversion efficiency of up to 24.8 per cent.
• Coincident with the Jinko litigation and Talon PV agreement, First Solar announced pre-tax earnings of $1.4 billion on sales of $4.2 billion in 2024, with both figures up sharply on 2023.
Sales revenues are expected to tick up sharply this year, to between $5.3 billion and $5.8 billion, with CEO Mark Widmar reflecting:
“[In 2024] we expanded manufacturing capacity by commissioning our Alabama facility and progressed construction of our new Louisiana facility, established the infrastructure we anticipate will accelerate innovation with a new research and development center in Ohio, and produced and shipped a historic volume of modules.”
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