Suntech Power Holdings Limited just announced that their Pluto technology has enabled the company to boost its conversion efficiency by 2.5 percentage points on monocrystalline PV cells and 1.5 percentage points on multicrystalline PV cells. Suntech is now able to produce monocrystalline PV cells with 19% conversion efficiency and multicrystalline cells with 17% conversion efficiency.

This is good news, a TradingMarkets.com explains:

The big improvement in the conversion efficiency will help the solar cell producer slash its cost by a big margin.

Suntech isn’t done improving its conversion efficiency, either. The company’s goal is to boost efficiencies even further in the next two years, to 20 percent for monocrystalline PV cells and 18 percent for multicrystalline PV cells.