Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Oerlikon Solar has received the first orders for its new ThinFab thin film silicon module production line.

Last Friday, Sanyo announced that it had achieved the world’s highest cell conversion efficiency at 21.6 percent. However, responding to questions from pv magazine, the efficiency has not been independently verified and there are no plans for outside testing.

Sanyo Component Europe GmbH has achieved what it says is the world’s highest cell conversion efficiency at 21.6 percent.

Sharp Corporation has announced it will begin mass production of its new single crystalline solar cell.

An organic-based photovoltaic (OPV) cell has been verified by the National Energy Renewable Laboratory (NREL) as having demonstrated a record-breaking 8.3 percent efficiency.

3S Swiss Solar Systems and Hansjürg Leibundgut, a professor for building technology at ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) have announced a collaboration in the field of energy optimization in buildings, under which a new “hybrid” solar panel has been created.

Thin film photovoltaics (PV) cell manufacturer, XsunX, Inc. has announced it has reached 15.1 percent conversion efficiency with its CIGSolar technology.

German company, PVflex Solar GmbH has said that, thanks to flexible lamination, CIGS solar cells now have the ability to both realize their potential as the most efficient thin film technology and to dominate the building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) market in the future.

China Trends Holdings Limited has said it is looking to develop one million solar electric cars, along with China Innovation Investment Limited and China Oriental Numerical Control Company Limited.

Munich Re has introduced what it says is the first U.S. insurance solution to provide an effective performance warranty for solar panels.