JA Solar Partners with Golden Concord to Develop 4GW HBC Technology

On April 9, GCL New Energy announced that its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, GCL Quanzhou New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. ("GCL Quanzhou"), entered into a 4GW HBC upgrade project joint venture agreement with Yiwu JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd. ("Yiwu JA Solar") and Fujian Golden Stone Energy Co., Ltd. ("Fujian Golden Stone") on April 29.

According to the agreement, Yiwu JA Solar and Fujian Golden Stone will establish a joint venture to produce 4GW of HBC photovoltaic cells. GCL Quanzhou will grant the joint venture rights to use its HBC cell patent technology but will not take an equity stake in the joint venture company.

source: JA Solar

The announcement indicates that the joint venture must pay intellectual property licensing fees to GCL Quanzhou on a monthly basis for using the HBC cell patent technology, specifically:

1. The intellectual property licensing fee payable by the joint venture = total monthly HBC cell sales volume × per-watt intellectual property licensing fee.

2. The per-watt intellectual property licensing fee equals 30% of the gross profit margin difference between HBC modules and TOPCon modules sold during the same period, with a cap of 0.008 yuan per watt.

3. The joint venture must pay GCL Quanzhou for the previous month's use of HBC solar cell patent technology by the 15th of each month, provided that the joint venture generated net profit in the previous month.

This initiative plans to leverage equipment and facilities from the previous generation of passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) technology, combined with GCL New Energy's patent portfolio to upgrade to the higher-conversion-efficiency HBC technology. This move also signals that JA Solar will enter the back-contact (BC) cell production space through its joint venture with GCL New Energy.

In 2021, Aikang Shares introduced their newly developed ABC cells. In 2023, LONGi Green Energy's Chairman Li Zhenguo stated that many of LONGi's products would transition to BC technology. Since then, BC cell technology has developed rapidly, with efficiency and production capacity rapidly increasing. Today, an increasing number of photovoltaic module manufacturers are launching BC module products, as detailed in Weike Network Photovoltaic's article "Aikang, LONGi, Tongwei, Yidao, GCL... A Wave of High-Efficiency BC Modules Are Coming."

JA Solar's move to develop BC capacity through cooperation with GCL New Energy is not surprising. As a global leader in photovoltaic power generation solutions, JA Solar consistently adheres to its innovation strategy of "mass-producing one generation, reserving one generation, and researching one generation." Its research center not only maintains sufficient technical reserves in TOPCon and heterojunction cells but has also made deep inroads into cutting-edge technologies including various back-contact cells, perovskite, and tandem cells.

Regarding TOPCon cell technology, in early 2025, JA Solar unveiled its new DeepBlue 5.0 ultra-high-performance module. Based on JA Solar's Bycium+ 5.0 cell technology platform, this product integrates cutting-edge technology, structural optimization, material enhancement, and electrical architecture upgrades, achieving significant improvements in module performance with power output reaching 670W and efficiency reaching 24.8%.

In its investor relations activity report released on April 30, 2025, JA Solar stated: "BC has competitiveness in niche markets. As the BC process route becomes clearer, we will consider investing in partial production capacity, which can reduce waste generated by process changes."