Solar ♦ news digest publications.
“As we press to move our technology closer to commercialization, we are extremely pleased to have someone of Dr. Dagli’s caliber on our team,” said Jim Nelson, CEO of Solar3D. “He brings years of direct and complimentary experience to bear on the issues that we will face as we develop our technology. He has the knowledge and creativity to help us optimise the efficiency of our new solar cell design.”
Solar3D’s breakthrough technology uses low- cost processes and innovative 3D light trapping structures to increase the efficiency of solar cells in order to decrease the overall cost per watt of electricity. Through revolutionary solar cell engineering, Solar3D’s approach will tip the solar cost curve in the direction of massive scalability, thus allowing the global deployment of a non- polluting energy technology that produces electricity from an unlimited power source, the Sun.
“I am honoured to be part of an innovative company that is determined to make solar energy more cost-effective,” said Dagli. “Solar3D’s technology has the potential to change the way people think about energy by making it economically feasible to dramatically increase the use of photovoltaics to generate electricity.”
Dagli received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has been a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB).
CIGS cells reach record efficiency of 17.4%
Q-cells says this sets a world-record for the entire thin-film sector catching up with crystalline technology.
Solibro GmbH, a subsidiary of Q-Cells SE, says it has marked a ground-breaking world record with its thin-film CIGS technology.
The firm says its thin-film
Q.SMART module technology is now the first in the entire thin-film
sector to achieve a solar module efficiency of 17.4% (aperture area). The new record has been confirmed by the independent Fraunhofer ISE Institute, located in Freiburg, Germany.
The record test module, with size 16 cm2, was fabricated using processes fully scalable to cost- effective mass production. The co-evaporation CIGS process uses metal flux profiles, temperature profiles as well as process time similar to Solibro’s current production.
“We are very proud of this result as it demonstrates the leadership of the CIGS technology produced by Q-Cells’ subsidiary Solibro. The current record verifies the feasibility of the efficiency roadmap of the
Q.SMART module targeting an average aperture efficiency out of series production of up to 16.7 % in 2016”, said Lars Stolt, CTO of Solibro.
Already in March 2011, a
Q.SMART thin- film module, marked a world-record, with an independently confirmed efficiency rating of 14.7% which the firm says is still the world-record for monolithically integrated CIGS thin film modules in series production, today.
Q.SMART’s CIGS technology harnesses a “light- soaking” effect unique in the thin-film sector to generate an average of 2.5 percent power boost above nominal power at standard test conditions.
Q.SMART is also claimed to outperform in diverse environmental conditions, including low-light periods of the day and high-heat climates. Ideal for residential, commercial and utility-scale settings,
Q.SMART comes along with a positive sorting; i.e. customers always receive what they pay for - and more. In October 2011 Q-Cells realised a lighthouse project by delivering around 200.000
Q.SMART modules into the world’s largest CIGS solar power plant located in Ammerland, Germany.
The CIGS technology behind
Q.SMART was developed in 1983 by the Ångström Solar Centre at Uppsala University, Sweden, commercialised by the spin-off company Solibro in 2006, and acquired by Q-Cells in 2009.
Q.SMART is produced in Thalheim, Germany, at the company’s own factory with a total nominal production capacity of 135 MWp.
With this world-record Q-Cells has marked the fifth world record in 2011 underpinning the technological
November/December 2011
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 179
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