Global Solar Energy's Cigs Production Material Achieves 15.45 Percent Efficiency

Global Solar Energy, Inc., the premier manufacturer of Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) thin film solar products, today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the nation's primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development, confirmed 15.45 percent total area efficiency for Global Solar's production level CIGS material. Adding to this news, Global Solar announces a peak efficiency of 11.7 percent for production CIGS solar cell strings manufactured at its 35-megawatt German and 40-megawatt U.S. plants. With these benchmarks, Global Solar continues to advance the thin film photovoltaic market and underscores its leadership as the only manufacturer of CIGS cells on a flexible substrate in full scale production.

"The 15.45 percent total-area conversion efficiency, independently verified by NREL for a thin film CIGS solar cell fabricated by Global Solar Energy, is a significant achievement for such rapid deposition on a metal foil substrate in a manufacturing environment," says Dr. Harin S. Ullal, National Center for Photovoltaics, National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. This research was supported in part by the Thin Film PV Partnership Program at NREL.

Global Solar Energy has been in production of its CIGS thin film solar cells on flexible materials for more than five years, bringing the low cost, high efficiency and highperformance of CIGS technology to a variety of applications. From portable solar chargers, to traditional glass modules, to next generation building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products, Global Solar cells are the enabling technology behind several growing market segments.

"It is great news that our company has achieved this milestone of over 15 percent total area efficiency verified by NREL. It is even better news that in a full scale production manufacturing environment, in two separate plants, that Global Solar is today producing CIGS strings at 11.7 percent efficiency," said Michael Gering, CEO of Global Solar Energy. "In less than two years, Global Solar increased production capacity from 4.2 megawatts to 75 megawatts worldwide and continues to increase the efficiency of our highly flexible and adaptive PV material. These achievements not only help advance the solar solutions developed by our existing customers and partners, but also open the door of opportunity for new usages and BIPV applications in the market."

About National Renewable Energy Laboratory

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is the nation's primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development (R&D). NREL is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.