Tokyo, Japan--Copper, indium, selenium (CIS) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar-cell manufacturer Solar Frontier, a 100% subsidiary of Showa Shell Sekiyu, achieved a 17.8% aperture area conversion efficiency on a 30 cm x 30 cm CIS-based PV submodule in joint research with Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki, Japan). This new record for thin-film CIS PV technology was accomplished at Atsugi Research Center (ARC), Solar Frontier's dedicated research laboratory in Japan that it says is the cornerstone of the company's integrated research and production framework.
"I would like to emphasize as we have before that this efficiency is on a fully integrated submodule, which our laboratory produces with processes very similar to what is in place in our factories at commercial production scale," said Satoru Kuriyagawa, CTO at Solar Frontier. "Even higher efficiencies can be achieved by using a device with a very small surface area, but the reason we prefer to focus on the submodule level is that the path to commercial production is more practical. This achievement confirms that we are on track to achieve the higher module efficiencies we are targeting in our commercial production efficiency roadmap."
This new record surpasses Solar Frontier's previous world record of 17.2% set in March 2011.
Solar Frontier's CIS modules are manufactured at its Kunitomi plant, which started full commercial operations last year. The technological advances made at ARC are applied to mass production through Solar Frontier's integrated research and production framework, which includes a pilot plant equipped with the machines on which the gigawatt-scale Kunitomi plant's machinery is based.
Solar Frontier is headquartered in Tokyo, with offices in Europe, the USA, and the Middle East.
SOURCE: Solar Frontier; www.solar-frontier.com/news/179
