Solarmer have fabricated plastic solar cells with certified efficiencies above 7%:
7.6% certified by Newport Corporation’s Technology and Applications Center’s Photovoltaic (TAC-PV) Lab.
7.9% certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
G24 Innovations (G24i) and consumer electronics bag manufacturer Mascotte Industrial Associates are announcing the world’s first commercial product using Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC):
The G24i photovoltaic panel will be integrated into a range of bags targeting the consumer market. The panel will harvest energy while used outdoors as well as in low light conditions indoors – [...]
Solarmer Energy Inc., founded in 2006 to commercialise polymer solar cell technology developed by the Yang Yang group at UCLA, are using a new semiconducting material (”PTB1″) invented by University of Chicago chemists.
The University licensed the patent rights to the technology to Solarmer last September. The license covers several polymers under development in Yu’s [...]
A team of researchers at MIT, headed by Marc Baldo, have developed solar concentrators based on coatings of organic dyes on glass or plastic substrates. Sunlight absorbed by the dye molecules is re-emitted at different wavelengths and waveguided to the photovoltaic cells at the edge of the glass substrate. From the press release:
The dye-based organic [...]
The ECN (Energy research Centre of the Netherlands) is teaming up with the Holst Centre to transfer their lab-scale solar cell processing to Roll-to-Roll production:
At ECN, organic photovoltaics are being researched for almost a decade. The knowledge of materials, system designs and production processes has come to a point where transition to large scale [...]
Konarka, developers of organic photovoltaics,
today announced it has raised $45 million in private capital financing. The financing was led by Mackenzie Financial Corporation, a leading investment management firm with over $60 billion in assets under management, and was co-led by existing investor, Good Energies, a leading investor in the renewable energy industry. Lead investors from [...]
Konarka (organic photovoltaics) and Toppan Forms (Data Print Services and information management services)
have signed a joint agreement to accelerate the development, manufacturing and commercialization of polymer-based organic photovoltaic (OPV) technologies for consumer and electronic applications. Under the agreement, the mutual goal is to bring Konarka’a organic photovoltaic material, Power Plastic®, to market.
“Konarka’s Power Plastic is [...]
From the Press release: (pdf, html)
BASF and Bosch are to cooperate in the innovative field of organic photovoltaics (OPV) and are founding members of the technology initiative of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). [... ] Last year, photovoltaic modules had a global market volume of €8 billion. The segment is expected to [...]
Kyosemi Corporation is developing solar cells consisting of 1mm spheres on a flexible substrate.
More information on the Sphelar solar cells: production process, main features, overview (PDF):
In mid-2006, Kyosemi Corp. plans to begin full-scale mass production of its Sphelar spherical micro solar cell at its Eniwa Operation in Eniwa City, Hokkaido, Japan.
While existing planar solar cells [...]