News - Plastic solar cell efficiency boosted by nearly 50 per cent

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Mimicking nature should always be Plan A.

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Interesting article - even though I did feel a little disappointed (I'd misread the title - expecting to hear instead about a new cell that was 50%+ efficient).

Leaves me wondering (no pun intended) how "efficient" an actual leaf is in converting light to energy - must look it up when I've got a minute.

On the other hand if these Plastic solar cells are so cheap to produce compared to classic Silicon-based Cells. If the Cost is less than half as much per cell then on a cost standpoint it'll be cheaper to buy twice as much of these as it would to get regular cells for a given power output.
I just hope this gets put into some form of production soon so I can get some and unroll them onto my roof. And if they are still reasonably transparent I'll put 'em on my windows too.

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Originally Posted by zaph0d

I just hope this gets put into some form of production soon so I can get some and unroll them onto my roof. And if they are still reasonably transparent I'll put 'em on my windows too.

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I remember seeing something on Discovery channel about greenhouses with flexible solar panels instead of the normal glass/plastic. The power gathered was then used to run lights or small heaters.

Actually you got me thinking, in the same programme there was something about solar cells that could be used to replace windows in high-rise buildings. So presumably they were some new type that didn't have (highly?) visible cells in them to block the view - more akin to tinted glass.

I remember there was a research paper about semi-transparent solar panels, they were keyed to use non-visable light in the high-frequency spectrums so that they were transparent.
However the ones in the paper were based on refraction in the glass with the panels in the frame itself, similar to the metal strips round double-glazing fittings so the efficience of that couldn't be very high, probably 2-5% at best even though high-frequency light has higher energy density than visable light.

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Originally Posted by zaph0d

On the other hand if these Plastic solar cells are so cheap to produce compared to classic Silicon-based Cells. If the Cost is less than half as much per cell then on a cost standpoint it'll be cheaper to buy twice as much of these as it would to get regular cells for a given power output.
I just hope this gets put into some form of production soon so I can get some and unroll them onto my roof. And if they are still reasonably transparent I'll put 'em on my windows too.

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At half the cost per cell, and 50% greater efficiency the return on investment may drop below 100 years!

actually if the industry got its thumb out of its ass we could be using LFTR right now :(