Western’s Folsom, CA, facility was selected by Siemens’ Solar Industries to be a “Beta Test Site” for its new copper-indium-diselenide (CIS) photovoltaic (PV) modules. For the next three to five years, Western will monitor the module performance and report the field results to Siemens. The CIS modules are expected to generate twice the solar energy of current thin-film PV modules such as amorphous silicon. This means they will meet or exceed the performance of crystalline technology at less than one-half the price. It is likely that CIS modules will be the dominant technology in the near future due to this price and performance advantage.