Global Solar Energy announced this week that the U.S. Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Laboratory has confirmed that a module using the company’s production-line thin film solar material achieved 13.2 percent aperture area efficiency.
With the confirmation in hand, GSE can now call itself the first manufacturer to exceed the 13 percent milestone using thin film on a flexible substrate, and further stakes their claim as a leading player in the thin film photovoltaic solar panel materials market.
"We are incredibly proud of the hard work the Global Solar Energy team has applied, which has enabled us to be the first company to achieve the milestone of a 13.2 percent NREL-verified module efficiency," said Dr. Jeff Britt, CEO of GSE. "This achievement elevates us into the ranks of the few thin film companies to surpass this efficiency and is the culmination of a year of steady and rapid improvement in efficiency and yield at our production plants in both Arizona and Germany."
Dr. Ryne P. Raffaelle, Director of NREL's National Center for Photovoltaics, added that the accomplishment elevated GSE into an exclusive tier of companies that had achieved the efficiency milestone. However, he added that the accomplishment was all the more impressive because the thin film was made using standard production equipment.
