First Solar has produced a 21% efficient solar PV cell at its research and development (R&D) center in the U.S. state of Ohio. This efficiency has been certified by Newport Corporation's Technology and Applications Center PV Lab.
This is a new world record not only for cadmium telluride, but all single-junction thin-film solar technologies, and has already been incorporated into the National Renewable Energy Laboratories' (NREL) best research cell efficiencies chart.
This is also a significant improvement on First Solar's last record of 20.4%, set in February 2014. The company's roadmap projects a 22% cell efficiency in 2015, and First Solar says that it is ahead of schedule.
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"We have just begun to reveal the true unrealized potential of CdTe PV," said First Solar Chief Technology Officer Raffi Garabedian. Garabedian notes that the company's record-setting cells are based on the same manufacturing process and materials that it uses for mass production.
As a result, First Solar says that it is having success in transferring its R&D accomplishments to the production floor, and raised the average efficiency of the modules that it produces 0.5% to 14.0% during the second quarter of 2014.
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