Image: www.konarka.com
This article was originally seen in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Green Living Magazine. View the original article (pdf).
The one drawback to solar has been the cost. Silicon, used as a semiconductor to create electricity, is expensive and the global shortage of polysilicon -- the kind used in most solar panels -- isn’t making it any cheaper. So scientists are thinking of clever ways to do more with less of it.
The future looks bright
Some solar companies are shunning silicon altogether. Research groups worldwide, such as Australian company Dyesol, are using inexpensive pigments based on natural compounds, such as green dyes that mimic chlorophyll.
Although no commercial products are ready, the industry is buzzing that dye-sensitized cells could be a huge breakthrough. But by far the biggest buzz is over solar cells that can be painted onto flexible surfaces with the same kind of roll-to-roll manufacturing used in printing presses. This will be much quicker and cheaper than the high-tech airtight labs where the solar panels of yesteryear had to be assembled before being ready for real-world use, and likely won’t contain silicon. And they’re cheap to manufacture.
Meanwhile, New York State-based DayStar Technologies makes thin films from tiny particles of copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIG S). These films are much lighter and thinner than aluminum foil, and the company anticipates they could be used to cover the wings of airplanes or be draped over satellites.
California’s Nanosolar has also been generating an enormous amount of hype recently with CIG S thin films. It is in the process of constructing the world’s largest thin-film factory in San Jose, and should have commercial products ready within the next few years.
Also coming up on the horizon is Massachusetts based Konarka, which will start commercializing its solar plastics this summer. These can be coloured and printed in virtually any style: brick patterns for walls, camouflage, anything you like. Moreover, the plastic is so light and flexible, the company envisions it could be incorporated onto the surface of just about anything: blinds, awnings, windows, MP3 players, laptops and phones (enabling them to charge themselves) -- even clothing. Director of business development Jamie Braman won’t divulge exactly what products carrying this solar technology will be coming out soon, but he says, “We’re going to be like the Intel microprocessor inside a computer -- the solar power behind other people’s products. You’ll see stuff popping up on the market soon.” University of Toronto hotshot engineer professor
Ted Sargent is also developing paint-on silicon free solar cells, except his go one step further: they use light that you can’t even see. His solar paint uses infrared light, and thus can use up to 30 percent of the sunlight that bathes the earth (as opposed to regular photovoltaic cells, which can only use up to 6 percent), so the potential for using infrared is huge.
Solar is powerful
Clearly, solar power is on the ascent.
California is in the middle of installing a million solar roofs on homes and businesses across the state. Huge solar farms are being constructed in the Nevada desert, Spain and Portugal. This spring, several companies, including OptiSolar Farms Canada Inc. and SunEdison Canada LLC , announced new solar farm projects to create power for commercial and residential use in southern Ontario, which will use vast arrays of panels linked directly to the grid. Thanks to new incentives from the Ontario government, purchasing solar energy will cost no more than from any other source of power.
With all the new innovations coming our way, there’s little doubt that solar is going to become more versatile, more powerful and more affordable.
Zoe Cormier is a Toronto based writer.
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Thanks Dean