Glass is main commercial focus of emerging solar technologies in 2010

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 05 Sep 2010

This year has seen several projects and collaborations by emerging solar cell start-ups to apply their technology to glass, in order to exploit the potentially lucrative building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) market.

The most recent partnership announced is an initiative between Norwegian company EnSol and the University of Leicester in the UK.

EnSol has patented a thin-film solar cell technology that it aims to develop commercially by 2016. The company has begun working with Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy to develop a coating for glass and other surfaces, to produce power on a large scale.

The thin-film material is based on metal nanoparticles, embedded in a composite material. Following some modest investments by EnSol, equipment installed at the university department is now able to produce small amounts of the material for prototypes.

One application for the coating is windows, as the coating provides a high degree of transparency. The coating can also be optimised further for other building envelope components such as roof tiles, where transparency is not an issue.

Construction partners

An important trend in many solar-generating glass projects initiated this year is for emerging solar and PV technology firms to team up with suppliers of glass to the construction industry, to develop new products for the BIPV market.

These include the formation of a joint venture between Australian dye-sensitised solar cell (DSSC) materials supplier Dyesol and Pilkington North America, part of one of the world's largest glass suppliers, with key markets in construction, automotive and other areas.

The new company, called DyeTec Solar, will be based in Toledo, Ohio, close to Pilkington NA's corporate R&D base. The venture will develop a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) glass supplied by Pilkington as a substrate for the solar industry, for energy-generating glass for construction and automotive markets.

New Energy Technologies, which in July 2010 announced a completely transparent electricity generating glass called SolarWindow, is now developing spray coating methods to cut future production costs. Researchers are also working to enhance the electrical power output of SolarWindow. A working prototype should be unveiled in the coming weeks.

+Plastic Electronics Volume 3, issue 2, will include a series of special features on the commercialisation of dye-sensitised solar cells. The magazine will also be appearing at the forthcoming 4th International Conference on the Industrialisation of Dye Solar Cells, 1-4 November 2010.
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