BETTER THIN FILM SOLAR WITH CHEMISTRY

First Solar and Intermolecular Announce Joint Program to Accelerate Solar PV Roadmap; Collaboration Will Leverage Intermolecular's High Productivity Combinatorial Platform Towards Achieving Higher CdTe Solar Panel Efficiencies

June 11, 2012 (GlobeNewswire via MarketWatch)

“First Solar, Inc…and Intermolecular, Inc.. announced a collaboration and licensing agreement aimed at accelerating the efficiency roadmap for First Solar's cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) technology. First Solar is the world's largest thin film PV solar module manufacturer and the leader in thin film PV utility-scale solar power plants.

“…First Solar will leverage Intermolecular's High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) platform in the development of its advanced, CdTe-based, thin film PV manufacturing technology…[through] new opportunities in certain critical materials and processes that may significantly influence the conversion efficiency of CdTe technology. Technical work is to be performed jointly at Intermolecular's San Jose, Calif., facility and in First Solar's research and development labs…”

click to enlarge

“First Solar set a new world record for CdTe PV solar module efficiency in January 2012, achieving 14.4 percent total area efficiency. In July 2011, the company set a world record for CdTe PV cell efficiency at 17.3 percent. Both records were confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)…

“Intermolecular's mission is to improve R&D efficiency in the semiconductor and clean-energy industries through collaborations that use its HPC platform, which allows R&D experimentation to be performed at speeds up to 100 times faster than traditional methods…”

Tweet