First Solar claims that the module is more efficient than the best multi-crystalline module recorded and is further evidence of the company’s ability to deliver sustained product improvements consistent with its long-term technology roadmap.
The record has been measured and certified by the US Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The company says that the 18.6 percent aperture area efficiency corresponds to a full area conversion efficiency of 18.2 percent, which easily beats the best recorded multi-crystalline Si PERC module with an approximate full area efficiency of 17.7 percent (based on 19.1 percent aperture efficiency and published module area data).
The achievement is the eighth substantial update to CdTe record efficiency since 2011, continuing a disruptive and sustained trend of rapid performance improvements by the company. First Solar also produced a research cell with 21.5 percent conversion efficiency in January, certified at the Newport Corporation's Technology and Applications Center (TAC) PV Lab and confirmed by NREL.
“First Solar's CdTe thin film is now rightly categorised as a high performance product” said Raffi Garabedian, First Solar's Chief Technology Officer. “At one time, we might have been characterised as a low cost, low efficiency technology, but consistent with our technology projections we are now proving that CdTe thin film delivers both industry-leading performance AND sustainable thin-film cost structures.”
Garabedian added that First Solar's significant sustained investment in development of CdTe technology has enabled the company to meet or exceed its aggressive projections for improvements in research cells and modules, as well as commercialized technology. While silicon technologies have approached their theoretical efficiency entitlement and levelled out in terms of performance and cost, First Solar claims it has continued to harvest the benefits of its thin film technology, increasing efficiency and with more technology head room for further innovation.
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