Solar Frontier Raises Thin-Film Solar Cell Efficiency Record to 22.9%
Tokyo-based Solar Frontier, a large manufacturer of CIS (copper indium selenium) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar modules, says that it has set a new record for thin-film solar cell energy conversion efficiency of 22.9%, as verified independently by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in November. The work was done in joint research with the National Research and Development Agency's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in Japan on a 1cm2 cell.
The new record is a 0.3 percentage point increase over the existing record of 22.6% that was set in February 2016 by ZSW (Zentrum fuer Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung "” or Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research "” Baden-Wuerttemberg) in Stuttgart, Germany.
The latest achievement was enabled through technologies such as CIS absorber engineering and enhanced surface treatment of the absorber layer, which Solar Frontier says demonstrates the steady progression of thin-film technology.
