News

8 October 2009

 

Solarion claims record conversion efficiency for CIGS solar cell on plastic substrate

Solarion AG of Leipzig, Germany says it has achieved a world record conversion efficiency of 13.4% for a copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cell on a plastic substrate, produced on an industrial roll-to-roll system. The record cells do not employ anti-reflective coating.

According to the firm, the result has been independently verified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) of Freiburg, Germany.

“This achievement shows that our proprietary ion beam technology for the production of flexible solar cells not only uses less raw materials and energy, but also reaches high conversion efficiencies,“ said Alexander Braun, CTO of Solarion AG. “This result is not only a world record efficiency for flexible CIGS solar cells manufactured on a plastic substrate in an industrial roll-to-roll coating process, but is also the highest efficiency for any thin film solar cell on a flexible polymer substrate from a roll-to-roll process, regardless of the absorber material.”

Karsten Otte, CEO of Solarion, added: “The combination of a low-cost polymer substrate, the ion beam technology and a roll-to-roll production process allows us to reduce manufacturing costs significantly.“

Founded in 2000, Solarion established the first European pilot-line for the manufacturing of flexible and highly efficient CIGS thin-film cells on a flexible carrier material in 2002. Mass-manufacturing of CIGS based modules is planned for next year.

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Visit: www.solarion.de