The backside of REC’s Alpha module, showing its junction box design.
REC confirmed in a press release that it filed a patent infringement lawsuit on February 18, 2020. The case was accepted by Suzhou IP Tribunal on April 8, 2020, and was served on Q CELLS in China on April 20, 2020.
The patent in suit, granted in China in July 2019, relates to REC’s split cell and junction box technology, which was developed in-house. REC Group products incorporating this technology have been manufactured for more than half a decade in REC’s production site in Singapore. This specific technology is a key feature of REC Group’s advanced solar panels.
REC’s legacy TwinPeak and now Alpha line of solar panels feature half-cut cells, a trend that has been picked up by many other manufacturers. REC’s design effectively turns each panel into two twin panels, as the half-cut cells can be placed closer together and then split down the middle. The upper and lower modules halves operate independently using split junction boxes.
The backside of a Q CELLS module at SPI 2018 showing a similar junction box design.
