Amelio Solar has announced its latest innovation, the "PV Duo" tandem photovoltaic module. The PV Duo combines a thin-film amorphous silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic device and a thin-film copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) photovoltaic device into one integrated module.

The primary advantages of the PV Duo technology are:

+ the most efficient thin-film photovoltaic module technology, with demonstrated efficiency as high as 13%

+ retains the important advantages of a-Si, including its ability to perform in high temperature and low light conditions

+ no carcinogenic content, as opposed to other advanced thin-film technologies such as Cadmium Telluride and other CIGS products which use cadmium sulfide as a buffer layer.

Dr. Zoltan Kiss, founder of Amelio Solar, stated: "I, and other members of our technical team, have been involved in the development of virtually every thin-film technology from the 1960s onward. The PV Duo is the pinnacle of this work, a combination of the best technologies to deliver a higher-efficiency thin-film product without the dangers of cadmium."

The PV Duo capitalizes on the construction of glass-to-glass encapsulated thin-film photovoltaic modules. As with the a-Si and CIGS, the PV Duo consists of a glass plate to which are applied the layers of material comprising the thin-film photovoltaic device.

Unlike a-Si and CIGS, however, which have a second glass plate that serves as a blank, protective back cover laminated to the photovoltaic glass plate, the PV Duo utilizes the surface area of the second glass plate to create a second photovoltaic device, initially CIGS-based, which is laminated to the first photovoltaic glass plate, initially a-Si-based, resulting in an a-Si/CIGS four terminal tandem module.

The company offers its PV Duo, a-Si and CIGS products in 1.0 square meter and 1.5 square meter substrate sizes, and turn-key manufacturing systems for all products with either manual or optional automated glass plate-handling.