First Solar Achieves World Record 18.6 Percent Thin Film Module Conversion Efficiency

First Solar, Inc. has set another world record for cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) module conversion efficiency, achieving 18.6% aperture efficiency for an advanced full size module. For the first time, First Solar demonstrated a record module that is more efficient than the best multi-crystalline module recorded.

The record has been measured and certified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

This 18.6% aperture area efficiency corresponds to a full area conversion efficiency of 18.2%, which easily beats the best recorded multi-crystalline Si PERC module with an approximate full area efficiency of 17.7% (based on 19.1% aperture efficiency and published module area data).

This achievement is the eighth substantial update to CdTe record efficiency since 2011, continuing a disruptive and sustained trend of rapid performance improvements. In January, First Solar produced a research cell with 21.5% conversion efficiency, certified at the Newport Corporation’s Technology and Applications Center (TAC) PV Lab and confirmed by NREL.

“First Solar’s CdTe thin film is now rightly categorized as a high performance product,” said Raffi Garabedian, First Solar’s CTO. “At one time, we might have been characterized as a low cost, low efficiency technology, but consistent with our technology projections we are now proving that CdTe thin film delivers both industry-leading performance and sustainable thin-film cost structures.

“While silicon technologies have approached their theoretical efficiency entitlement and leveled out in terms of performance and cost, First Solar continues to harvest the upside available from its superior thin film technology,” Garabedian added. “Our CdTe modules are now more efficient than the best multi-crystalline Si modules, and we still have a great deal of technology head room for further innovation.”

Nick Strevel, First Solar’s senior manager of technology, added that First Solar’s CdTe product will provide up to 8% more useable energy from the same land area than m-Si, which gives First Solar a competitive advantage over other PV technologies.