he US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created thin film solar panels that are very close to competing with their more traditional silicon-based cousins. “The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell recently reached 19.9 percent efficiency in testing at the lab, setting a new world record.” 19.9% refers to how much of the sun’s light is converted to electricity by the panel. Multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells have shown efficiencies as high as 20.3 percent (without concentrators…), so thin film is very close. Any fraction of a percent makes a big difference over the decades of useful life of a panel. The energy conversion efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of sunlight converted by the cell into electricity. Researchers were able to set this new thin-film record because of improvements in the quality of the material applied during the manufacturing process which boosts the power output from the cell, according to NREL.“This is an important milestone,” said NREL Senior Scientist Miguel Contreras. “The thin film people have always looked for matching silicon in performance, and we are reaching that goal.”
www.nrel.gov
