Solar Frontier achieves 19.7% for CIGS "cells"

Share

Advocates of CIGS thin film technology have long advocated that as a semiconductor is possessed the potential for both high efficiencies and low manufacturing costs. However, the deposition process has proven notoriously tricky to master and efficiency gains have been steady, however not stellar.

Japan’s Solar Frontier has a long history with CIGS technology, which it refers to as CIS despite gallium being present in the recipe, and has claimed an efficiency breakthrough on a tiny CIGS cell today. The efficiency result, which pushes towards the watershed 20% mark, was achieved through collaboration with Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization.

While it’s debatable as to whether CIGS deposition forms cells, it is significant that the record setting segments of Solar Frontier technology were cut from a 30cm x 30cm substrate, indicating that the technology could be deployed on a full-size glass substrate some time in the future. The company indicated in a statement today that the process used for the result was a similar sputter and selenization process it uses in mass production. This is as opposed to a co-evaporation process – which itself has claimed the current CIGS efficiency record of 20.3%.

"The CIS thin-film modules currently available from Solar Frontier have gained a reputation for high performance in actual power generation, as they are not easily affected by shadows or high temperatures," said Satoru Kuriyagawa in a statement announcing the result. "Now, even higher real-world performance can be expected by applying this new basic technology."

Solar Frontier’s modules are now rolling of its Kunitomi production lines with a module efficiency of 13% with a champion aperture efficiency of 14.5%. The company’s plant, which began commercial production in November 2011, is tooled for 900 MW of annual capacity and is currently operating at approximately two-thirds capacity, the company informs pv magazine.

Solar Frontier’s Brooks Herring, Vice President of communications and operations told pv magazine that while the market remains tough for all solar players, the company is resolved in its commitment to CIGS technology. "It’s a challenge being in the solar business these days, that comes as no surprise to you," said Herring. "Are we still sold on the technology? Absolutely, we continue to get very good feedback from third parties who test our products and find that we perform far better than we expect and we even advertise."

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Longi introduces 665 W HPBC photovoltaic modules

11 October 2024 The Chinese PV manufacturer said its new module series has a power conversion efficiency of up to 24.8% and temperature coefficient is -0.26% per C.

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.