In recent market, you hear people talking about 5BB, 9BB, M6 type 166mm solar cells, and half cut solar panels. You may get confused with all these terms, what are they? What do they stand for? What are the differences between them? In this article, we will briefly explain all the concept mentioned above.

What are 5BB and 9BB?

5BB means 5 bus bars, these are the silvery bars that are screen printing on the front surface of a solar cell. The bus bars are designed as conductor that collect the electricity. The number and the width of bus bar are mainly depend on the cell’s size and designed efficiency. Given optimal conditions and theoretically saying, the increase in bus bars, the increase in efficiency. However, in real applications, it is difficult to find such a optimal point which balance the width of bus bar and minimize the shade of sunlight. Compare with 5BB cells that has a normal size 156.75mm or 158.75mm, 9BB cells increase in both bars number and the cell’s size which is 166mm in most cases, besides, 9BB uses circular welding strip to minimize the shade. With all these new improved techniques, 166mm 9BB solar cells significantly increase the output performance.

What is half cut cell solar panels?

If we cut a full size solar cell into half through a laser dicing machine, welding all half cells in string series and parallel wiring two series, finally encapsulating them as one solar panel. Remain the same with power, the full cell’s original ampere is divided by two, electric resistance is the same, and the internal loss is reduced to 1/4. All these factors contribute to the improvements on entire output.

What are the advantages of 166mm 9BB and half cell solar panels?
1: Half cell technically improve the power of solar panels to around 5-10w.
2: With the improve in output efficiency, the installation area decreased by 3%, and the installation cost decreased by 6%.
3: Half cell technique minimize the risks of the cells’ crack and the damage of bus bars, therefore increase the stability and reliability of solar array.