With solar panel prices plunging, it's unclear whether incremental steps like this will help. Several startups have been trying other approaches like reducing the cost of materials such as polysilicon or squeezing as much efficiency as possible from the installed based through approaches like using robots to align solar arrays to track the sun (the approach eliminates costly motors).
Then there's the difficulty of competing with relatively cheap and plentiful energy sources like natural gas. Still, any improvements in solar efficiency help.
Imec and SolarWorld specified that this collaborative work had been achieved as part of the EU-funded ultra-thin solar cells for module assembly -tough and efficient (ULTIMATE) project.
See here: http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=proj.document&PJ_RCN=10502366