Perovskite thin-film solar cells could be closer to commercialisation than expected after Oxford Photovoltaics (Oxford PV) made a critical appointment of a veteran leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing technologist as its Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Chris Case.
Hanergy Solar’s German-based subsidiary, Solibro has achieved a conversion efficiency of 20.5%, which have been verified by the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Thin-film producer, Solar Frontier has produced a CIS solar cell with a record conversion efficiency of 20.9% at the Atsugi Research Center, Japan in collaboration with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
First Solar has revealed a new total area module efficiency record for its CdTe thin-film technology of 17%, a significant increase from 16.1%, set in April 2013.
First Solar is planning its next major CdTe thin-film production capacity expansion phase to occur in 2015 with an additional 1GW of nameplate capacity. The company revealed the plans during its 2014 Analyst Day event.
Having dropped organic solar cells (OPV) that used fullerenes as the acceptor materials, imec has reported in ‘Nature Communications’ that it has produced a fullerene-free OPV cell with a record conversion efficiency of 8.4% and a 156cm2 module with a conversion efficiency of 5.3%.
