HelioVolt, the well-funded Austin startup lead by Dr. B.J. Stanbery, is rumored to be announcing a breakthrough in CIGS efficiency with its CIGS cells. According to the company, it’s proprietary FASST reactive transfer printing process can produce cells with a 12.2% conversion efficiency in a mere 6 minutes. The announcement is expected come today at the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conference, where Stanbery is expected to disclose the efficiency threshold which HelioVolt has reached in its labs. We will bring you more information after his speech - in the meantime, if you are interested in reading more, VentureBeat has a great article about the state of the CIGS industry.

UPDATE: Here is a statement from Stanbery about the achievement: “In the lab, CIGS is already achieving the highest efficiencies of any thin film solar material. The challenge of course is transferring that efficiency to a high throughput, high yield, low cost process capable of delivering gigawatts worth of quality commercial product. We view these high-performance results as an indicator of FASST’s potential to meet that need. We’re already producing CIGS devices that are comparable with the highest efficiency thin film products on the market today, and we still see plenty of room to improve from here.”