News

16 September 2009

 

Global Solar’s CIGS production material reaches 15.45% efficiency

Global Solar Energy Inc of Tucson, AZ, USA, which manufactures copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic cells for both glass modules and flexible substrates, says that the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO has confirmed 15.45% total area efficiency for its production-level CIGS material.

The firm has also reached a peak efficiency of 11.7% for production CIGS solar cell strings manufactured at its 40MW plant in Tucson (opened in March 2008) and its 35MW plant in Berlin Adlershof Technology Park, Germany (opened last November). Global Solar claims to be the only manufacturer of CIGS photovoltaic cells on a flexible substrate in full-scale production.

“The 15.45% total-area conversion efficiency, independently verified by NREL for a thin-film CIGS solar cell fabricated by Global Solar Energy, is a significant achievement for such rapid deposition on a metal foil substrate in a manufacturing environment,” says Dr Harin S. Ullal of the National Center for Photovoltaics at NREL. The research was supported in part by NREL’s Thin Film PV Partnership Program.

Global Solar Energy has been in production of its CIGS thin-film solar cells on flexible materials for more than five years, for applications from portable solar chargers to traditional glass modules and building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products.

“In less than two years, Global Solar increased production capacity from 4.2MW to 75MW worldwide and continues to increase the efficiency of our highly flexible and adaptive PV material,” says the firm’s CEO Michael Gering. “These achievements not only help advance the solar solutions developed by our existing customers and partners, but also open the door of opportunity for new usages and BIPV applications in the market,” he reckons.

See related item:

Dow to sell roof shingles embedding Global Solar’s CIGS PVs by 2011

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Visit: www.globalsolar.com