Amonix Inc., a designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar power systems, says it has set a new record for solar module efficiency.
In May, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) confirmed an outdoor operating efficiency rating of 33.5% for an Amonix module, breaking the previous 30.3% record also held by Amonix. Over several days of on-sun testing conducted by NREL, the module efficiency peaked at 34.2%. This is the highest efficiency ever reported under real-world operating conditions for a solar PV module, according to Amonix.
‘While the mainstream PV industry has made critical reductions in large-scale production costs and incremental improvements in power-conversion efficiencies, much of the world is unaware of the dramatic progress that has been made by CPV companies toward achieving high power-conversion efficiencies,’ notes Sarah Kurtz, reliability group manager at NREL.