Company achieves another milestone on its technology roadmap

Continuing innovation will lead to lower-cost solar electricity

United Solar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD) (Nasdaq:ENER) and a leading global manufacturer of light-weight, flexible thin-film solar modules, today announced that it has achieved a world record efficiency of 16.3% for thin-film silicon solar technology. This achievement is higher than the previous record of 15.4%, also reached by United Solar. United Solar attained a small-area (0.25 cm²) initial cell efficiency of 16.3% using a triple-junction structure incorporating the recently patented Nano-Crystalline™ silicon technology.

The cells will be sent to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), an official U.S. Department of Energy laboratory, for independent testing and confirmation. Earlier this year, United Solar announced that NREL had confirmed that the company’s Nano-Crystalline technology achieves 12% initial conversion efficiency in a large-area encapsulated cell (400 cm²), also a world-record for thin-film silicon solar technology.

"This represents another substantial milestone for the company as we continue to develop our technology through a focus on conversion efficiency," said Jay Knoll, Interim President of Energy Conversion Devices, United Solar’s parent company. "Our core technology can now reach conversion efficiencies of 16.3% in the lab, an increase from 15.4%, leading the way in thin-film silicon technology development."

The results will be reported at the Intersolar North America Conference in San Francisco, California by Dr. Subhendu Guha, Chairman of United Solar, on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at the session on "Thin-Film — Technological Advancements."

1. Solibro CIGS Thin-Film PV Technology Reaches World-Record Efficiency of 17.4%

   Solibro demonstrates groundbreaking efficiency of 17.4% with next generation CIGS thin-film technology for Q.SMART modules CIGS sets world-record for entire...

2. World Record for Multi-Crystalline Module Conversion Efficiency – Suntech with Another Breakthrough

   HAMBURG, Germany and WUXI, China, Sept. 23 – Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP), the world’s leading manufacturer of...

3. Breakthrough Pluto Technology Developed by Suntech Achieves Efficiencies of 19% on Mono- crystalline PV Cells and 17% on Multi-crystalline PV Cells in Production

     –Conversion Efficiencies Independently Verified by the Fraunhofer Institute SAN FRANCISCO and WUXI, China, March 27, 2009 /PRNewswire-Asia via COMTEX/...

4. Suntech with World Record Conversion Efficiency for a Multi-Crystalline Module

   Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP), has announced today (19.08.2009) that it has achieved a new world record conversion...