BAODING, China, Sept. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE) ("Yingli Solar" or "Yingli"), one of the world's leading solar panel manufacturers, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Yingli Green Energy Americas (Yingli Americas) and Picasolar Inc. are the recipients of a prestigious SunShot award from the Department of Energy to advance Picasolar's innovative Hydrogen Super Emitter (HSE) into pilot production.

The U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources before the end of the decade. Through SunShot, the Energy Department supports efforts by private companies, universities, and national laboratories to drive down the cost of solar electricity to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour. Picasolar has previously received two SunShot awards to develop the novel selective emitter approach for n-type solar cells.

The HSE process enables higher efficiency while reducing the amount of silver required during cell production. Laboratory demonstrations verified by a third party have shown over 1% absolute efficiency improvements while eliminating 15% of the silver grid lines. This collaborative SunShot project will combine Yingli's world class manufacturing expertise with Picasolar's award winning technology and will result in a pilot demonstration in 2017.

"Yingli is committed to delivering the highest performance modules at the best cost for consumers. Continued development of advanced solar cell technologies is a big part of achieving this goal," commented Sergiu Pop, Director of Strategic R&D for Yingli Americas. "Successfully completing this project will result in additional competitive advantages for Yingli and we are very excited to be working with Picasolar."

"Picasolar is thrilled to be working with Yingli and we are impressed by their commitment to long term value creation through technology development," said Douglas Hutchings, CEO of Picasolar. "Even the world's best technology doesn't have an impact unless it makes into manufacturing. Working with the team at Yingli we can help ensure that this technology gets to market."

About Yingli Green Energy

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE), known as "Yingli Solar," is one of the world's leading solar module manufacturers. Yingli Green Energy's manufacturing covers the photovoltaic value chain from ingot casting and wafering through solar cell production and solar PV module assembly. Headquartered in Baoding, China, Yingli Green Energy has more than 30 regional subsidiaries and branch offices and has distributed more than 15 GW solar PV modules to customers worldwide. For more information, please visit www.yinglisolar.com and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Weibo.

About Picasolar

Picasolar is a leading provider for advanced solar cell technologies. Headquartered in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Picasolar focuses on high impact R&D for the solar industry. Picasolar's mission is to enable cost competitive solar manufacturing for every geography. For more information, please visit www.picasolar.com and join the conversation on Facebook.