• High-tech equipment manufacturer sets new benchmark for efficiency of CIGS modules on mass production line in Schwäbisch Hall
• Impressive transfer of the 21.7% world record for laboratory cells of technology partner ZSW Stuttgart to mass production
• CEO Dieter Manz: 16 percent world record in module format is an important milestone, but immense potential of CIGS technology not nearly exhausted
Reutlingen, April 27, 2015. With a module efficiency of 16 percent, Manz AG is presenting an impressive new efficiency world record for CIGS thin-film solar modules today at SNEC in Shanghai, the world’s leading trade fair for the photovoltaics industry. In doing so, Manz is pushing forward into a new dimension and closing the efficiency gap that has previously existed in the multi-crystalline technology that is still prevalent today.
In the fall of 2014, the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research of Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), Manz’s exclusive development partner, was able to demonstrate the superiority of CIGS technology in comparison to crystalline solar cells in the laboratory, with a world-record efficiency of 21.7% in cell format. With Manz’s new world record for module size, this superiority has now been impressively proven in production. The significance of this result is all the greater since the high-tech equipment manufacturer produced the world record module on its innovative production line for CIGS technology at its location in Schwäbisch Hall, on equipment for mass production.
The significant increase in performance was achieved mainly by the next generation of CIGS semiconductor material, which Manz applies to a glass substrate in the so-called co-evaporation process. Additional technological innovation is a new module design for increasing the active module surface. In addition, Manz engineers were able to sustainably reduce optical losses.
Dieter Manz, founder and CEO of Manz AG, is extremely satisfied with the consistent, continued development of CIGS thin-film technology by his engineers: “Our performance parameters are world-class. With significantly lower production costs compared to crystalline solar cells, CIGS technology will play a large role in the coming investment cycle of the photovoltaics industry,” Dieter Manz is convinced. Today, CIGS modules from Manz already offer the lowest electricity generation costs in comparison to the still prevailing crystalline silicon technology.
