Introduction and Green Tech Overview
all right let's get uh started with the introduction to maxian solar panels uh one of the uh one of our Green Tech Renewables um suppliers and presented presented by Green Tech Renewables so uh Maxi and solar panels um we're gonna it's gonna be a we'll do a quick introduction to Green Tech and um then we'll introduce the maxion team and they will present on the the product it will have time for questions and answers uh throughout and and definitely afterwards so let's Jump Ahead to the uh getting started um slide uh data sheets and additional resources are available in the sidebar in the control panel under handouts we'll do the Q a session at the end but you know please submit questions anytime in the chat box and um we'll organize the questions and start working on the answers um during the presentation and we'll we'll start the Q a right afterwards um and then of course um we'll do a recording of the event and um that will be emailed to all the registrants following the webinar if you want to follow up on the presentation um thanks let's go to the next slide um
Green Tech Renewables um we're committed to providing customers with exceptional service of course and top-tier products from prominent renewable energy manufacturers we are the leading solar distributor in the country a local network with over 90 locations uh all over the U.S in all the major solar markets if there's a solar program in the U.S then there's probably a Green Tech nearby our warehouses have always been purpose built for will call construction um extensive on-site inventory and Logistics support um and everything from start to finish for any project um of course our core values our service integrity and reliability so uh that gets us to next slide please um
Meet the Maxeon Team
Presenters from Green Tech Renewables
presenting uh or you know uh representing here is Green Tech Renewables uh engineering I'm Stuart Fox um we are an engineering team that works inside of the Green Tech Network we any Green Tech account um can have 24 7 access to uh the entire design team for pretty much any kind of project that and anywhere in the United States carports batteries HOAs military projects on-grid off-grid we do almost any kind of project and you access the design team for permitting and Technical sales through your CED sales rep um which gets us to the next slide uh
again I'm Stuart Fox from Green Tech Renewables head of engineering um and um now I'll turn it over to maxion team to introduce themselves and get the ball rolling thanks Stuart Darren you want to just go ahead we'll go in order here
Introducing the Maxeon Team
hey everyone my name's Darren Hoffman I'm actually based out of Australia um but I'm one of the uh sales and Technical Trainers for Maxi on here and I'm very very happy to be here and look forward to taking you through some interesting content in a little bit
it's early in the morning so we're very uh grateful that Darren is made time for us I'm Spencer Collette maxian director of sales for North America residential and Commercial um I don't have the attendee list although I'll get it uh for the webinar but I'm guessing I am a familiar face to some new phase to others uh it's a quick background I spent about six years at SunPower back in but stent ended in 2016. uh as an RSM then as an area sales manager uh since then I I took on loved the product um and you know very very pleased to be uh representing it again uh between then and now I took on a couple of solar roofing projects most recently around the channel team for uh Tesla for the solar roof product and have been back here with maxion for the past five to six months working on hiring of the team and standing up this business thank you
yeah thanks Spencer so I'm Jack Campo I'm actually based out of Europe uh I I started some power about 2010 in r d and have kind of worked with some power maxion throughout the years and currently you know obviously worked with maxi on side uh since since the transition um background in engineering and business um and again just based in over here in Europe um but basically had kind of support support the whole world um including Spencer so pretty excited to see our North America business starting and and being able to present to you guys today exactly
Maxeon Company & Product Launch
okay well welcome we very much appreciate your attendance today I'm excited to take you through uh sort of the beginnings here of uh what we think will be a long and fruitful relationship with many of you in the North American Market quick agenda uh we're going to talk about some launch Basics uh talk to you a little bit about the company try to clear up any confusion between you know what is maxion what is SunPower we'll talk to you about the product that we're launching with and the program that we are launching here in short order uh then we'll spend the majority of the presentation on a technical Deep dive so just talking about the differentiation of the product what that means in terms of features and benefits to your customer and then we'll round the presentation out with a quick kitchen table snapshot so this is sort of an illustrative look at three different systems and Android proposals that an average homeowner might see and how they Stack Up
Maxeon Company History and Global Presence
Launch Basics on the company so we're very old company right this is a company that's been leading innovation in the space for 37 years uh we were founded in Silicon Valley in 1985 we hold over 500 patents we have over 48 million modules and operations right now and we have just over a billion dollar market cap and our publicly traded on the NASDAQ we were also just named one of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world uh you can see the chart over here on the other graphic here on the left um you know showing some of our competitors uh and you know the links of time they've been in the business we clearly Eclipse uh virtually all and you know you can see that we've been there from the start and we are still 100 committed to PV many of the other companies there um you know have other businesses and we're you know npv uh long ago but have exited and then many others that we compete with today it started long after us so very committed to the industry uh and here for the Long Haul
Maxeon vs. SunPower: Clarifying the Brands
you know you see sun power and Maxi on the graphic there so I did want to talk about that briefly uh maxion operates the SunPower brand in every Market outside of the United States so some power as you know at SunPower North America is the downstream entity uh in the U.S also a publicly traded company we manufacture modules for sun power um and then lastly you know quickly on Maxon again we're we're a global company has mentioned some power based here just in the US we've got over 1700 sales and installation Partners internationally and over 5 000 employees internationally and you can see the list of customers there you know we provide um cells the SpaceX and blue origin we've done a number of projects for prologis we're doing a Google campus right now we're on the Apple campus as well um so you know for those who are are most concerned with quality longevity and sustainability we are the Clear Choice
Product Availability and Partner Program
Current Product Availability
put launch basics so the product is available now exclusively through Green Tech I believe we've shipped to six locations so far we will ship to 19 Green Tech locations so far uh this quarter there is some additional product available for q1 so I want to be really clear about the fact that there is product available um and there's additional product available for your Green Tech PC should they not have placed a stocking order for q1 so if you have questions about availability for your local market talk to your Green Tech PC the product is available uh
Building Our Sales and Partner Network
we're currently Staffing a sales team to support you guys uh with training and just ongoing support you know this is a differentiated product it requires a bit of a differentiated skill set to sell effectively and so we know that we need to staff a direct team to work directly with you uh we have uh three sales reps signed now coming on uh one in the Northeast one in California and one in Texas uh that will all be onboarded within the next two to three weeks so I'll introduce them to their Green Tech counterparts first and Green Tech will help us introduce them to you uh by the end of the year we should be closer to you know seven or eight rsms and we'll continue to grow the team from there
we're also launching a partner program uh sometime in February ideally at the beginning of February so this is a Channel program much like you've seen from other panel manufacturers we will have a couple of tiers uh we want to have close relationships with our installer partners and so we want to do that through this Channel program and we want to use things like marketing dollars you know potential access to differentiated Finance offerings as a way to maintain a really sticky relationship with you guys so look for more details on that to come and then
The Maxeon 3 Module Overview
quick info on the product uh so the product that we're launching with is called the max 3 112 cell AC ready module uh everything for the first couple of quarters is going to be black on black and the majority of the volume this year will be all black right now we're shipping a 410 and a 415 with a Max efficiency of 22.2 percent and every one of those panels comes with a 40-year warranty
Maxeon Advantage: Understanding Panel Failures
I'm going to turn it over to Darren to talk about the maxion advantage and our unique advantages in efficiency reliability and our warranty thanks Spencer um yes so I'm going to take you through how we differentiate on a technology level um any of the information that we present here is also based on third-party validation so it's not exclusively claims that are being made by us it can actually be substantiated by others as well so to do that
Common Causes of Panel Failure
to manufacture a better product and we feel we've got the best product on the market you first need to understand how they fail so there's been numerous studies done into the causes of how and why panels fail in the field away from standard test conditions so this particular study it was done by Dupont Global on PV reliability and it was very extensive and conducted across three gigawatts worth of installations the study identified that hot spots and internal circuitry issues along with cracked cells they account for over 60 of failures and surprisingly up to 30 percent of those issues occur within 10 years of installation so that's well within the warranty period and they certainly continue to increase in frequency over time um Interruption to the energy flow is what causes hot spots and that is usually in the form of a shaded or cracked cell which causes the affected cells to operate at higher temperatures now this can degrade the surrounding panel materials including the glass in the encapsulin as you can see in this graph thanks Spencer so
Field Examples of Panel Degradation
if we know that hotspots and circuitry issues are the reasons for panel failure what how does that relate and happen out in the field so in the form of shade it can be a Fallen Leaf as it is in this example but it could be the buildup of some soiling or a shadow from a chimney throughout the day that can interrupt the energy flow um and then as far as still cracking there's a there's a phenomenon called thermal cycling and that puts stress on the cells at the connection point between the cell and the contact ribbons which is how which is how a conventional panel is engineered uh using those front contact ribbons which are made of different materials in the Silicon as the temperature changes throughout the day the cell and the metal contacts want to expand at different rates and this puts stress on the panel components of the cell to ribbon connection point and these can fatigue over time and will eventually break the if the temperature uh in the infected cell heats up enough the bypass diodes will activate um that to protect that portion of the panel um now that's that's a good thing but unfortunately with persistent activations the the diodes can fail over time as well in a recent field study in Japan found that 47 of panels had defective bypass diodes after 10 years with daily partial shading next one
and the follow the following effect is that once the diodes the follow-on effect is that once the diodes fail it leaves a panel unprotected so shaded and cracked cells and the temperatures um can continue to increase and they can get high enough to cause breakage to the glass and damage the back sheet so
Maxeon IBC Technology Explained
The Innovative Maxeon IBC Cell Design
what differentiates maxion IBC technology is that it's designed to engineer out how conventional panels fail it's built on a solid copper Foundation machine has all the circuitry and electrical connections on the back of the cell and that eliminates the need for the front contacts and bus bars and built on that solar Foundation it's highly flexible so it protects against cell cracking we've got painted electrical tabs at the connection Point made from the same tin plated copper that run the length of the cell to provide solid electrical connection and there are also gaps engineered into those tabs that allow the cell to expand and contract freely without placing any strain on the connections or the cells themselves and that eliminates the effects of thermal cycling yeah
Shade and Hot Spot Management
now having a copper-based cell doesn't stop the panel being exposed to shade or soiling but it does allow the panel to manage the problem more effectively and if we look at this table it highlights the maxio and IBC panel compared to other conventional panels in a shaded scenario yeah sole cell that is shaded or severely cracked doesn't produce the same electrical current as the other cells in the panel and electrically the affected cells is still driven to match the current of its neighbors and it begins to operate in reverse and it converts That Power from the neighboring cells into heat now in standard cells this heating tends to occur in a concentrated area of the cell and that causes the hot spot now these hotspots and feature temperatures high enough to degrade panel materials and as I said to mitigate the hot spot development bypass diodes in the junction box are employed to avoid avoid the sections of the panel that's got the affected cells in it um but it's got a limited effect the maxion cell however running in Reverse demonstrates a lower heat generation and it's spread across the entire surface area of that cell as a result of diodes in a maxion panel activate less frequently so it increases both the production and the useful life of the panel and I'm actually on Cell operating in Reverse running a much safer temperature as well so it does greatly extend the life of those panel materials so
Summary of Maxeon IBC Benefits
when I'm actually on IBC sellers can feed into a panel they're effectively Hot Spot protected as a direct result of better engineering the solid metal foundation on the maxion cell is highly flexible and as I said crack resistant so cell breakage are much less of an issue and we'll still maintain an electrical connection and produce current even if there is a crack shading is also less of an issue and coupled with our painted tabs at the cell interconnection points they provide a secure pathway for energy to exit the panel freely also
Efficiency, Performance, and Evolution
Beyond Nameplate Efficiency: Real-World Performance
I want to briefly discuss efficiency and Main plate writing on panels at standard test conditions is not necessarily a reflection or a true comparison of performance of those non-optimal times so when we're having discussion about how maxion panels will generate more energy provided what it's key that the End customer understands that the maxion panel is engineered different and will outperform competitive panels over the life of the product in this comparison both panels produce 400 watts at standard test conditions which is about as good as conditions can get the three comparisons that you see here are the reduction in energy you could expect from maxion IBC panel and a conventional panel so when subjected to the same amount of shade as you know PVC simulation like this one the maxion cell is still producing an additional 76 watts compared to the conventional panel and in the middle comparison the output is based on published degradation rates with the maxion warranting an additional seven percent output in year 25. and then the third difference is a yield based comparison on data sheet temperature coefficients so you can see that there's still more energy production based on better efficiency um and guess what I wanted to highlight from this from this um on this slide is that when you're comparing efficiency particularly at standard test conditions that not all watts are created equally
The Evolution of PV Cells and Maxeon's Enduring Design
still talking about efficiency I think it's interesting to highlight the evolution of PV cells over the last uh over the last years starting back with polycrystalline cells that were into the emergence of cells that were being produced from a single piece of silicon into the monos and now onto the new technologies that are emerging with hjt coming onto the market now all of those have had advances in performance and efficiency but fundamentally they're still produced in the same way with those printed metal bus bars and um and thin interconnectors between the cells maxions had the ethos from its Inception to manufacture a product that that has engineered out those common family modes and we're in our 38th year of doing so and we've had that we've had that actually on Cell um since way back before I started in 2008 so it's it's been there as a benchmark for a very very long time um
so this this is a this is a summary of um what what um what the difference is effectively between the Technologies um and the uh the hjt it can um it can claim to harvest more energy um with uh uh with the way that it's produced as a highlighted before though the the the the standout point is that it's still got the same architecture it has before um and we're also seeing that some of the degradation rates that are in those those panels are are higher than what we're seeing uh w
Maxeon Solar Panel Specifications
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Product Name | Max 3 112 Cell AC Ready Module |
| Color | Black on Black (majority volume this year) |
| Wattage Options | 410W, 415W |
| Max Efficiency | 22.2% |
| Warranty | 40 Years |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the relationship between Maxeon and SunPower?
A: Maxeon operates the SunPower brand in every market outside of the United States. SunPower North America is the downstream entity in the U.S., and Maxeon manufactures modules for SunPower.
Q: Where can I get Maxeon solar panels, and what are the current models available?
A: Maxeon solar panels are available now exclusively through Green Tech Renewables, shipped to various locations with additional product for Q1. The current models are the Max 3 112 cell AC ready module, available in 410W and 415W, primarily black on black, with a maximum efficiency of 22.2% and a 40-year warranty.
Q: How does Maxeon IBC technology prevent panel failures compared to conventional panels?
A: Maxeon IBC technology is designed to engineer out common failure modes. It's built on a solid copper foundation with all circuitry on the back of the cell, eliminating front contacts and bus bars. This design makes the cell highly flexible and crack-resistant, protects against thermal cycling stress, and effectively manages hot spots and shade by spreading heat generation and activating bypass diodes less frequently, thus extending the panel's useful life.