HelioVolt says it boosts thin film efficiency

Austin, Texas-based HelioVolt said today that it has increased the efficiency of its thin film solar cells, producing cells with 12.2 percent conversion efficiencies.

The company said the copper indium gallium selenide, or CIGS, cells were manufactured using what it said was a rapid, scalable printing process, printing them out in six minutes.

"In the lab, CIGS is already achieving the highest efficiencies of any thin film solar material," said B.J. Stanbery, CEO and founder of HelioVolt.

"The challenge of course is transferring that efficiency to a high throughput, high yield, low cost process capable of delivering gigawatts worth of quality commercial product."

The company said its currently optimizing its reactive transfer printing process, called FASST, for further efficiency gains and scaling up the process to begin commercial manufacture of thin film solar modules and building integrated solar products.

"We're already producing CIGS devices that are comparable with the highest efficiency thin film products on the market today, and we still see plenty of room to improve from here," said Stanbery.

HelioVolt said the efficiencies were confirmed by independent testing at Colorado State University. The company said the 12.2 percent efficiency devices consisted of CIGS photovoltaic thin film layer applied to a glass substrate.

Last December, HelioVolt said it planned to build its first factory in Austin (see HelioVolt to build first factory in Austin, Texas).

The company said the plant would have an initial production capacity of 20 megawatts and is expected to begin manufacturing solar products in this year.

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