By Greentech Lead America: First Solar and Intermolecular
announced a collaboration and licensing agreement aimed at accelerating the
efficiency roadmap for First Solar’s cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV)
technology.
Under the collaborative development program, First Solar
will leverage Intermolecular’s High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) platform
in the development of its advanced, CdTe-based, thin film PV manufacturing
technology. The program addresses new opportunities in certain critical
materials and processes that may significantly influence the conversion
efficiency of CdTe technology.
“Further improving our world-record CdTe conversion
efficiencies remains a strong lever to reduce the cost of solar energy. We
evaluated Intermolecular’s HPC platform and technical team in a trial
collaboration, and this experience confirmed the suitability of the platform
for our purposes,” said Raffi Garabedian, First Solar chief technology
officer. Â
Intermolecular’s HPC platform allows R&D
experimentation to be performed at speeds up to 100 times faster than
traditional methods. Â Technical work is to be performed jointly at
Intermolecular’s San Jose facility and in First Solar’s research and
development labs.
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.
“Leveraging our HPC platform to accelerate the PV
roadmap is central to our mission at Intermolecular. Today’s announcement with
First Solar — a market leader in PV and the undisputed champion in thin film
PV — represents tremendous validation of that proposition, particularly given
the extensive technical due diligence the First Solar team conducted prior to
entering into this agreement,” Craig Hunter, Intermolecular’s senior vice
president of Global Sales & Marketing.
First Solar dedicates Enbridge’s 50-MW Silver State North
solar project In Nevada
Recently, First Solar and Enbridge completed the
Enbridge’s 50-megawatt (AC) Silver State North Solar Project in Clark County,
Nevada. The photovoltaic plant is expected to produce enough renewable energy
to power about 9,000 Nevada homes.
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editor@greentechlead.com