UK organic solar cell project to get more funding

23 Aug 2010

A project in the UK with the aim of proving the feasibility of polymer semiconductor-based solar cells should win financing from private sources in the next few months.

The funds will be used to develop the materials and structure further with the objective of establishing a prototype production process.

The aim of the project, called UK Advanced PV Accelerator, is to develop a solar cell technology that can deliver 1GW of power (equivalent to carbon dioxide savings of more than 1 million tonnes per year) within 10 years. The cells will have 8% efficiency, a lifetime of at least five years and will be made on a roll-to-roll web up to 1m wide.

The project is exploiting polymer semiconductor IP from within the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. The Accelerator won funding from the government-funded Carbon Trust in 2008, where a total of £5 million (€6.1 million) in funds was set aside for the project.

Second phase

The Accelerator is happening in two phases and the first phase, which was eligible for up to £2 million of the total amount, is drawing to a close. The aim of the second phase is to develop a low temperature, roll-to-roll process for making small volumes of the cells.

Since the project started almost two years ago, several other types of printed and organic solar cell technologies have advanced. US-based Konarka has supplied its Power Plastic product, for use in bags for recharging consumer electronics. The company also has several projects with construction industry suppliers including Arch Aluminum and Glass, which is testing Konarka's technology in solar windows.

Heliatek in Germany, which is backed by Bosch and BASF, is currently installing equipment for producing its organic solar cells on flexible foils. Corus Steel, part of Tata, and supplier of dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs), is testing its modules as part of preparations for producing a solar cell-coated steel roofing material for warehouses.

+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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