Monitoring
Primary outcome · Frontier · 26 record steps
NREL single-crystal silicon cell efficiency frontier
Best reported one-sun efficiency for single-crystal, non-concentrator silicon research cells.
26.68% on 17 December 2025
- First record
- 13.938%
- Latest
- 26.68%
- Total gain
- +12.742
- Years
- 48.7
Efficiency frontier
Series definition
- Material
- Crystalline Si Cells
- Cell type
- Single crystal (non-concentrator)
- Illumination
- one sun or unstated
- Efficiency
- Combined efficiency, then revised/new efficiency, then original efficiency.
- Area
- No extra exclusion beyond the official NREL chart category. Area remains a quality dimension; every eligible record in the snapshot is at least 0.1 cm².
- Testing center
- Do not exclude historical records with an empty testing-center field; retain the field as a quality dimension.
Sensitivity checks
| Definition | Rows | Steps | Latest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official category | 50 | 26 | 26.68% |
| Area ≥ 0.1 cm² | 50 | 26 | 26.68% |
| Area ≥ 1 cm² | 49 | 26 | 26.68% |
| Testing center stated | 35 | 13 | 26.68% |
| Area ≥ 1 cm² + center | 35 | 13 | 26.68% |
All 26 frontier advances
| Date | Efficiency | Step | Group | Area cm² | Test center |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 April 1977 | 13.938% | — | Mobil Solar | 1.01 | Unknown |
| 1 February 1978 | 15.049% | +1.111 | RCA | 1.02 | Unstated |
| 1 January 1980 | 16.059% | +1.01 | Sandia National Laboratory | 2 | Unstated |
| 1 November 1982 | 16.665% | +0.606 | Westinghouse | 1.004 | Unstated |
| 1 May 1983 | 18.382% | +1.717 | ARCO | 1 | Unstated |
| 28 October 1983 | 18.887% | +0.505 | UNSW | 4.01 | Unstated |
| 22 December 1983 | 19.261% | +0.3737 | UNSW | 4.068 | Unstated |
| 1 April 1985 | 19.705% | +0.4444 | Spire | 4.02 | Unstated |
| 21 May 1985 | 19.998% | +0.2929 | UNSW | 3.99 | Unstated |
| 15 October 1985 | 20.2% | +0.202 | UNSW | 4.02 | Unstated |
| 11 December 1985 | 20.301% | +0.101 | UNSW | 4.01 | Unstated |
| 7 February 1986 | 20.604% | +0.303 | UNSW | 4.02 | Unstated |
| 15 June 1986 | 20.705% | +0.101 | UNSW | 1.01 | Unstated |
| 30 July 1986 | 20.806% | +0.101 | UNSW | 4.006 | Unstated |
| 1 June 1987 | 22.119% | +1.313 | Stanford | 0.152 | Unstated |
| 1 March 1994 | 23.735% | +1.616 | UNSW | 4 | Sandia |
| 1 September 1994 | 24.24% | +0.505 | UNSW | 4 | Sandia |
| 1 February 1998 | 24.644% | +0.404 | UNSW | 4 | Sandia |
| 1 November 1998 | 24.745% | +0.101 | UNSW | 4 | Sandia |
| 1 March 1999 | 25% | +0.255 | UNSW | 4 | Sandia |
| 1 August 2006 | 25.3% | +0.3 | Fraunhofer ISE | 4.014 | FhG-ISE |
| 1 March 2017 | 25.7% | +0.4 | Fraunhofer ISE | 4.017 | FhG-ISE |
| 1 July 2017 | 25.8% | +0.1 | FhG-ISE | 4.008 | FhG-ISE |
| 1 February 2018 | 26.1% | +0.3 | ISFH | 3.9857 | ISFH |
| 27 October 2025 | 26.55% | +0.45 | Runergy | 335.2 | ISFH |
| 17 December 2025 | 26.68% | +0.13 | Trina Solar | 350.2 | ISFH |
Analysis and limits
Analysis
Estimate a segmented, time-weighted linear trend in the standing efficiency frontier with a fixed 2000 boundary, and report percentage-point improvement per decade, record-step magnitude, and waiting time between successive frontier advances.
- Move the neutral comparison boundary to 1995 and 2005
- Require a reported cell area of at least 1 cm²
- Report the testing-center-complete reconstruction separately without using it as the primary history
- Estimate trends using one best observation per calendar year instead of every record step
- Report record-step magnitudes and waiting-time distributions without fitting a segmented model
- Audit every workbook revision for category, date, area, and efficiency changes before updating the estimate
Limits
- The frontier reflects materials, device architecture, fabrication, metrology, investment, and scientific knowledge in addition to computation or AI.
- The series contains only record steps and does not measure the full distribution of photovoltaic research outcomes.
- NREL technology labels and chart-entry conventions can change and require versioned source snapshots.
- Older records often lack a populated testing-center field, so that field is retained as a quality dimension rather than used to truncate history.
- A higher research-cell efficiency does not directly measure manufacturing cost, durability, module yield, or deployed climate impact.
Data and sources
Fetch or load the committed NREL workbook, parse the official table, freeze one material/cell-type/illumination category, derive running record steps, and verify area and test-center sensitivity rules from the same snapshot.
Workbook SHA-256: d36d268832b3b4b887cc1e8fc6e79730135ae1d81b46c804c27881e1d756a49b