GE said a thin-film solar panel under development has been independently certified as the most efficient ever, and that it intends to manufacture the record-setting solar panels at a new U.S. factory. The factory, which will have the capacity to produce enough panels to power 80,000 homes annually, will be part of a $600 million-plus investment GE plans to make in solar technology. Multiple locations for the factory are now under consideration.
The record-setting panel was produced by GE subsidiary PrimeStar Solar Inc., Aravada, Colo., and was tested by the Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to have 12.8 percent aperture area efficiency. GE said this panel surpasses all previously published records for cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin film, and that a one-percent increase in efficiency is equal to an approximate 10-percent decrease in system cost.
In a press release announcing the new record, Victor Abate, vice president of GE’s renewable energy business, said, “Our plan to open a U.S. solar manufacturing facility further demonstrates our confidence in this technology and is just the first phase in a global, multi-gigawatt roadmap. We’re not only excited by the efficiency milestone, but also by the speed at which our team was able to achieve it and the innovation runway for future improvements in this technology.”
In other solar news at GE, the company signed deals for 100MW of new commercial agreements for solar thin-film products, including panels, inverters and total solar power plants. GE’s largest solar agreement to date is with NextEra Energy for 60MW of thin-film solar panels. NextEra is the largest generator of solar energy in the country today. The company also currently produces 4.5 gigawatts of renewable energy with GE’s wind turbines.
GE also signed a 20MW solar agreement with Invenergy for the supply of thin-film solar panels and GE Brilliance inverters. Invenergy, a Chicago-based clean energy generation company, will install the solar products at a project site in Illinois.