Dive Summary:

• First Solar has announced plans to work with Intermolecular on an experiment technology coming from biotech firm Symx that will develop more advance photovoltaic manufacturing processes.
• The exact nature of the partnership is still unknown, but First Solar hopes that the teaming will result in a higher-efficient panel that will reduce area-related costs and eliminate the balance of system penalty.
• First Solar has seen conversion efficiency increase roughly 0.1 or 0.2 percentage points per quarter, which brought its consolidated efficiency to nearly 13 percent by the end of last year.

From the article:

First Solar set a new world record for CdTe PV module efficiency with a 14.4 percent total area efficiency last year. That mark came after First Solar hit a CdTe solar cell efficiency of 17.3 percent. Both records were set at the firm's Perrysburg, Ohio factory.

So there's headroom and the potential to give c-Si a run for its money on efficiency. But First Solar has to keep hammering on the potential of the CdTe materials system, as well as the other pieces of the module stack, such as the Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) and the back contact. ...