Solar Power World

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent 7,902,049, “Method for depositing high-quality microcrystalline semiconductor materials” to Subhendu Guha, Jeff Yang, and Baojie Yan for United Solar, a manufacturer of light-weight, flexible thin-film solar modules.

Earlier this year, the company announced that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), an official U.S. Department of Energy laboratory, had conducted independent testing and confirmed thier Nano-Crystalline technology achieves 12% initial conversion efficiency in a large-area encapsulated cell, a world-record for thin-film silicon solar technology.

“This is yet another confirmation of the  innovative  technological processes that United Solar is committed to developing, now and into the future,” says Mark Morelli, President and CEO of Energy Conversion Devices. “The proprietary technology covered in this patent will enable us to achieve our 12% aperture-area conversion efficiency in 2012, as outlined in our technology roadmap. The direct result of this is that we will be able to harness the sun’s energy in a more cost-effective manner.”

United Solar www.uni-solar.com