HelioVolt Wins Printed Electronics Award for Solar Product Development

HelioVolt Corporation, a producer of highly-efficient thin film solar products, received a Printed Electronics USA 2007 Award from IDTechEx, a leading independent international consulting firm specializing in printed electronics, RFID and smart packaging.  IDTechEx honored HelioVolt with a Best New Product Development Award for the technical achievement, broad market potential and competitive advantages of the company’s innovative photovoltaic coatings.

IDTechEx’s new Printed and Thin Film Photovoltaics and Batteries industry report finds that printed solar electric technologies have reached a “technological tipping point.” With demand for clean power growing worldwide, IDTechEx’s analysts report that the market for non-silicon thin film photovoltaics will reach $1 billion in 2012, growing to $6 billion in 2014.

“We honored HelioVolt with this award because we believe that the company has the technology, team, and savvy to take full advantage of the enormous market opportunity in the thin film solar arena,” said Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx.

HelioVolt’s proprietary FASST™ reactive transfer printing process manufactures high-performance CIGS thin film products ten to one hundred times more rapidly than competitive processes. The flexible printing process can be used to nano-engineer photovoltaic material for both conventional solar modules and integrated building materials including steel, architectural glass, and roofing.

“The field of printed electronics is poised to radically expand the energy market in new and disruptive ways, and IDTechEx is well versed in the most significant and innovative developments in this sector,” said HelioVolt CEO BJ Stanbery, Ph. D. “Thus it is a great honor to be recognized with this Best New Product Development Award as we begin to apply the FASST reactive transfer printing process to the manufacture of commercial solar products. Beyond driving advances in system cost and performance, I believe that integration of HelioVolt’s CIGS thin film photovoltaics into building construction materials will fundamentally reinvent the way we view and apply solar energy in the world around us.”

Dr. BJ Stanbery accepted the prestigious award at a ceremony Tuesday evening as a part of the Printed Electronics USA conference in San Francisco, Calif. Attended by more than 500 delegates from 18 countries, the conference is the largest event focused on the rapidly growing field of Printed Electronics.