Germany based solar panel technology leader Q-Cells SE scored its fourth world record for solar cells and modules this year by breaching the 18% level for yields in solar panel modules. But despite of this success it was removed from the PPVX share index a renown German magazine of the solar sector after Goldman Sachs and HSBC both gave bad grades in their reports.

Marking the newest world efficiency record a polycrystalline solar module from Q-Cells' in-house research centre achieved a module efficiency rating of 18.1% related to the aperture area. The independent Fraunhofer ISE (Institute for Solar Energy) in Freiburg,Germany, confirmed this result. This beat the former world record of 17.8%, set in spring 2011 by the same company. Q-Cells polycrystalline solar modules are now the first modules in the sector to achieve module efficiency of more than 18%.

The four records held by the company are an efficiency rating of 14.7% of one of its series production thin film modules in March; a 19.5% efficiency in a single cell polycristalline solar cell in April based on the same technology as the most recent two records for modules.

The series of world records in the fields of crystalline silicon and CIGS thin-film technologies underscores our quality promise and is proof of our technological top position as a German producer in the solar industry, Peter Wawer, Senior Vice President Technology with Q-Cells SE said.

German solar sector magazine PHOTON however removed the company from its Photon Photovoltaic Index replacing it by Taiwan based Solar Tech Energy. Reasons for the symbolic replacement are the significantly higher market capitalization of Solar Tech (558 million USD) compared to Q-Cells (349 million USD) over the last four weeks. This is the climax of a long decline of Q-Cells, which was the second biggest title in the index 2007 with about 13 billion USD market value.

Q-Cells is listed in TecDax at 1.32 EUR and is currently moving again to breach its former all time low at 1.30 EUR from June 27 this year.

Though Goldman Sachs still rates the company neutral in its July 8 report, but halved the course objective.

Jefferies International on the other hand rated Q-Cells underperform on July 7 pointing out the large stocks at falling prices on the world market. On the same day HSBC did see the price decline more hopeful predicting trough for Q3, but did not predict an upward trend because of existing excess capacities. Grade: underweight.

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