SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) announced the Monolith II solar panel, developed under its Joint Development Agreement with REC and exclusive to SunPower. The panel produces 522 watts using REC's N-Type Heterojunction (HJT) wafer technology in a bifacial design, with glass on both sides to capture light from the front and reflected light from the back.

The Monolith II represents a panel power record for SunPower since its 333-watt record set in 2009. The predecessor Monolith panel produced 470 watts. The new panel maintains the same footprint and weighs under 50 pounds, within the OSHA single-worker installation limit.

SunPower CEO T.J. Rodgers said, "Monolith II weighs less than 50 pounds, as mandated by OSHA for single-worker installation, yet produces 522 watts." Rodgers cited a personal example in which replacing 56 existing 360-watt panels with Monolith II units would add 46 kilowatt hours of energy per day, valued at $3,345 per year in California.

SunPower previously deployed commercial bifacial panels across 67 Starbucks store locations. The company said a first Monolith II residential installation is planned for a customer in Silicon Valley, where it will be compared side by side with the original Monolith panel.

Brian Ghiglia, REC Americas VP of Sales, said the collaboration with SunPower provides "early engineering data so we can rapidly improve our solar technology."

SunPower said the Monolith II is available to both new customers and its existing base of approximately 415,000 customers as a system upgrade option. The company is headquartered in Orem, Utah, and serves residential, commercial, new-home, and multifamily customers across the United States.