What is the actual finding?

PV Tech Research's announcement tracker, published 3 September 2026, shows heterojunction with the largest announced pipeline of the three main crystalline silicon technologies in the United States: 12.16 GW of cell capacity and 16.56 GW of module capacity. New TOPCon module announcements total just 1 GW, against a TOPCon cell pipeline of just over 13 GW.

Why would US manufacturers pick HJT over TOPCon?

Patent exposure, not performance. TOPCon is the subject of active intellectual property disputes, and PV Tech attributes the gap between the more than 32 GW of operational US TOPCon module capacity and roughly 1 GW of operational TOPCon cell capacity to patent risk associated with cell manufacturing. Building HJT sidesteps that risk.

Is HJT a better cell than TOPCon?

On two specific measures it is generally stronger: a lower temperature coefficient, meaning it loses less output as the cell heats up, and higher bifaciality. Against that it has historically cost more per watt to manufacture, mainly because of silver consumption and equipment cost. Which one wins depends on the site, not on a league table.

Does the rest of the world agree?

No, and that is the striking part. PV Tech notes that HJT adoption in China appears to be moving in the opposite direction while the US pipeline shifts toward it. The technology split is being driven by legal geography rather than engineering consensus.

Should a buyer in the Gulf wait for HJT modules?

No. Announced capacity is not shipped product, and US-built modules are aimed at the US market, where Section 232 tariffs make imports uneconomic. Gulf buyers will continue to source TOPCon from Asian production for the foreseeable future. The relevant effect for the Gulf is on global supply flows, not on what is available in Dubai next quarter.

Technology7 Sept 20268 min read

HJT overtakes TOPCon in the US solar factory pipeline

Nikita LutsenkoFounder & CEO, SOLTECH

HJT overtakes TOPCon in announced US solar cell and module manufacturing capacity

Announced US cell capacity now favours heterojunction over TOPCon by 12.16 GW to 13 GW of cells and 16.56 GW of modules, driven by patent risk rather than by physics.

Heterojunction has become the technology of choice in the US solar factory pipeline. PV Tech Research data published on 3 September 2026 shows HJT with 12.16 GW of announced cell capacity and 16.56 GW of announced module capacity in the United States, the largest volume of any crystalline silicon technology. New TOPCon module announcements total just 1 GW. The driver is patent risk rather than cell performance.

Announced versus operational US capacity by cell technology

Metric	Value	Source
Operational TOPCon module capacity, US	More than 32 GW - largest of any technology	PV Tech Research
Operational TOPCon cell capacity, US	About 1 GW	PV Tech Research
TOPCon cell capacity as share of module capacity	Under 3%	PV Tech Research
Announced TOPCon cell pipeline	Just over 13 GW	PV Tech Research
Announced TOPCon module pipeline	1 GW	PV Tech Research
Announced HJT cell pipeline	12.16 GW	PV Tech Research
Announced HJT module pipeline	16.56 GW - largest across the three technologies	PV Tech Research
Stated reason for the TOPCon cell gap	Patent risk associated with the technology	PV Tech Research
Direction of travel in China	Described as more or less the inverse of the US trend	PV Tech Research
Data published	3 September 2026	PV Tech

Why a 32-to-1 gap between modules and cells exists at all

The single most revealing number in the dataset is the ratio. The United States has more than 32 GW of operational TOPCon module capacity and roughly 1 GW of operational TOPCon cell capacity. Modules are assembled domestically; the cells inside them are overwhelmingly imported.

That is not an accident of investment timing. Module assembly is comparatively cheap, fast to build and legally uncomplicated. Cell fabrication is capital-intensive, slow, and - for TOPCon specifically - exposed to intellectual property claims that a US-domiciled manufacturer cannot easily ignore. Faced with that, builders of new cell capacity have moved to a technology where the legal position is cleaner.

What HJT actually does differently

Heterojunction puts thin amorphous silicon layers on either side of a crystalline wafer. Two consequences matter in practice. Its temperature coefficient is lower than TOPCon's, so it loses less output per degree of cell heating, and its bifaciality - the share of rear-side irradiance it converts - is typically higher.

Both of those favour hot, high-albedo sites, which is why the technology keeps coming up in Gulf conversations. The counterweight has always been cost: HJT has historically required more silver paste and more expensive deposition equipment per watt than TOPCon. That is a manufacturing economics problem, and it is the reason the world's fleet is TOPCon today. Our comparison of TOPCon against PERC covers the same trade-off one technology generation earlier.

The SOLTECH view

Our position: this is a legal story wearing a technology story's clothes, and treating it as a verdict on cell physics would be a mistake. Nothing in the PV Tech data says HJT is better. It says HJT is safer to build in one jurisdiction.

For a villa owner in the UAE: no practical effect, now or soon. You will be quoted TOPCon modules from Asian production, and US-built capacity is aimed at the US market behind Section 232 tariffs that make export uneconomic. If an installer offers you HJT at a premium and cites this trend as justification, that is a sales argument rather than an engineering one - the comparison that matters for a villa system is warranty terms, real degradation and price per installed kilowatt.
For a commercial or industrial buyer: the HJT temperature coefficient argument is real in Gulf conditions and worth pricing, but it is worth pricing against an actual yield model for your roof, not accepted as a general truth. On a hot rooftop with a light-coloured membrane the gain can justify a modest premium; on a shaded or space-constrained C&I roof it usually cannot. Ask for the PVsyst run, not the brochure.
For an EPC or investor: the number to watch is not the announcement total but the conversion rate. PV Tech's own framing separates announced from operational capacity precisely because the gap is large, and announced gigawatts have historically been a poor predictor of shipped modules. If a meaningful share of that 12.16 GW of HJT cell capacity does come online, the second-order effect reaches the Gulf as changed global supply flows and equipment lead times - the same mechanism we described in our note on Section 232 and module price floors.

Where we would push back on the coverage: framing this as an HJT breakthrough overstates it. A patent dispute in one country has redirected capital in that country, and China - which builds most of the world's cells - is reportedly moving the other way. Two things are also absent from the published data and would change the reading if they appeared: nothing here indicates HJT manufacturing cost per watt has closed the gap with TOPCon, and nothing indicates how much of the announced pipeline has financing rather than a press release. Until those are visible, we would treat the shift as a real signal about US industrial policy and a weak one about which cell ends up on Gulf roofs.

Sources: PV Tech - PV Chart of the Week: All eyes on HJT in announced US cell and module manufacturing capacity, 3 September 2026, PV Tech Research - The cell technology race shaping the US PV manufacturing boom, 3 September 2026, pv magazine - Heterojunction's long road to the US solar factory, 7 September 2026.

SOLTECH Solar Wiki · General information, not a design document. System-specific numbers always come from a site assessment. ← All articles

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