China's solar photovoltaic (PV) industry continues to demonstrate robust innovation and scaling, with several key developments signaling advancements across manufacturing, technology, and operational efficiency. These milestones, reported as of June 2025, reinforce the nation's dominant position in the global renewable energy landscape, impacting market dynamics and investment strategies.

JA Solar, a prominent integrated solar manufacturer, has achieved a significant industry first, securing the 'world’s first' certificate for solar photovoltaic cell power measurement uncertainty assessment from TÜV Rheinland. Issued for its R&D laboratory in Shanghai, this certification validates the lab’s PV cell power measurement system under standard test conditions (STC). The rigorous assessment, based on relevant IEC standards, encompassed a thorough evaluation of the lab’s hardware, measurement protocols, quality management system, and personnel expertise. The findings confirm that the STC power measurement uncertainty (at a coverage factor k=2) for JA Solar's lab is below 2%, establishing a new leading standard in global solar cell measurement accuracy. This achievement follows JA Solar's recent announcement of its n-type TOPCon DeepBlue module reaching a conversion efficiency of 25.5% with a front-side power output exceeding 700 W.

In a parallel development, LEAD Intelligent, a provider of smart manufacturing solutions, has successfully delivered a turnkey perovskite solar cell production line to a leading solar company in Shanghai. This comprehensive line integrates all critical processing steps, including substrate cleaning, laser scribing, coating, physical vapor deposition (PVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD), evaporation, annealing, vacuum crystallization, and encapsulation. LEAD emphasized that core systems, such as the PVD equipment, ALD system, evaporation chamber, laser scribing tools, and a 3-part coating suite, were all developed independently in-house, showcasing a high degree of technological self-sufficiency.

Integrated solar manufacturer Tongwei Solar announced a monumental achievement last week, with its cumulative module shipments reaching 100 GW as of June 2025. This remarkable feat was accomplished within a rapid period spanning from August 2022 to June 2025. While specific details regarding regional exports or module types were not disclosed, the milestone underscores Tongwei's immense production capacity and market penetration. At the recent TaiyangNews PV System Technology Trends Conference 2025, Aran Huang from Tongwei Solar’s Overseas Technical Support team, indicated the company's ambitious targets to achieve a cell efficiency of 26.5% with its upgraded TNC 2.0 technology.

Further advancing operational efficiency, the Solar PV Robot Application Alliance has officially released a white paper titled 'Smart Collaboration Among Modules, Mounting Systems, and Cleaning Robots'. Initiated by robotic cleaning solutions provider Sunpure and guided by the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), the paper was co-authored by industry leaders including TÜV SÜD, LONGi, JinkoSolar, JA Solar, Astronergy, and Arctech. According to Sunpure, the white paper offers an in-depth analysis of the current state and technological evolution of intelligent cleaning robots and their integration with PV systems, providing practical solutions for performance validation, product development innovation, and system-level synergy.

On the fundamental research front, the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has reported a significant breakthrough in developing a new radical-based self-assembling molecular material for perovskite solar cells. This innovation substantially enhances the performance of the hole transport layer (HTL) and addresses challenges associated with uniform large-area film deposition. Certified by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and published in the journal Science, the technology demonstrates carrier transport rates more than twice those of conventional materials, with virtually no degradation after thousands of hours of continuous operation. The material's superior self-assembling behavior enables the formation of highly uniform thin films, overcoming efficiency losses caused by disordered stacking in traditional HTL materials.