August 01, 2005 - Princeton, NJ, USA:

Energy Photovoltaics, Inc. (EPV), is pleased to announce the award of a three-year research contract in the area of thin-film Cu(In,Ga)Se2 by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The award, made under a competitive solicitation as part of the Thin-Film Photovoltaics Partnerships Program (TFPPP), is a subcontract under NREL's prime contract with the U.S. Department of Energy. Work performed under the subcontract will be cost-shared between NREL and EPV.

Under this award, EPV will participate in thin-film R&D and National R&D Team activities with other team members from academia, the thin-film PV industry, the National Center for Photovoltaics at NREL, and the Center of Excellence for Thin-Film Photovoltaics at the Institute of Energy Conversion (University of Delaware). The principal long-term objective of the TFPPP is to demonstrate commercial, 15% efficiency, thin-film PV modules, consistent with the DOE Solar Energy Technology Program.

EPV has developed a unique, vacuum-based hybrid process for large area CIGS deposition onto moving substrates. The hybrid process combines linear thermal source delivery of In, Ga, and Se with sputtering of Cu so as to achieve uniformity and good process control,Prior to receiving this award, EPV had achieved NREL-verified cell and module efficiencies of 13.1% and 7.5%, respectively.

EPV's subcontract is titled “Uniform, High-Efficiency, Hybrid CIGS Processing with Application to Novel Device Structures."  In this project, which started in March 2005, EPV is addressing throughput, efficiency, and cost limitations of its earlier processing in order to position the technology for manufacturing readiness. Already, EPV has demonstrated a simplified hybrid process and has reached a cell efficiency of 14%. The simplified process promises to greatly increase throughput in CIGS module production. Material costs are being reduced through reduction of the CIGS thickness from the usual range of 2.0 - 2.5 microns to the sub-micron range in order to demonstrate compatibility with potential GW-scale manufacturing. An efficiency of 12.8% was recently achieved for a cell of sub-micron thickness. During the course of the subcontract, new cell structures will be developed to take full advantage of the thinner CIGS active layer, and module efficiencies are expected to reach 11%.