Energy Efficient Printable Solar Cell Technology

Australian and German scientists have collaborated to develop a way of stacking printable solar cells in order to boost energy efficiency levels.  Through manufacturing a new dye form, the scientists have come up with unprecedented new solar cell technology that could usher in an age of low-cost renewable energy source devices to replace older alternatives. 

The team involved in this solar cell research is comprised of scientists from the University of Ulm in Germany, and Australia’s Monash and Wollongong universities, with Dr Udo Bach at its spearhead.

At present, printable solar cells fall behind silicon solar cells in terms of the level of solar energy that they can harness.  They do present certain advantages, though, like cost savings and, potentially – according to Dr Bach – the ability to be applied to a multitude of different surfaces, such as water.  To get best use out of them, then, science has – in this instance- looked towards combinations of printable solar cells. 

Printable Solar Cells

“Increasing the efficiency of these cells even slightly will make them a competitive alternative to heavy, expensive solar panels”, Dr Bach explained, adding: “... you can increase the efficiency of any solar device by creating stacks of cells and putting them on top of each other, like a sandwich”.  However, when printable solar cells are merged into a pair, their properties diminish unless one cell is arranged upside down.  Even then, there are energy efficiency issues – the combined structure’s overall efficiency not matching that of a single cell.

Solar Cell Efficiency

Now, though, Bach and his colleagues have changed all that by developing a new dye form for the upside down cell and – through doing this – demonstrated how multiple cell stacks can be more efficient that single cells.  Further modifications, however, will be needed to optimise solar cell efficiency (the stack’s present solar energy capture percentage is 2.4 per cent – compared to 20 per cent for a traditional silicon solar cell).

“This is just the first step, but we've shown that with more work, we can create very cheap and efficient solar cells by stacking two electrodes”, Bach stated.  He continued: “Printable solar cells already contain two layers of electrodes - but one of them is inactive.  We're simply replacing the inactive one with inverted solar cells.”

“The tandem devices will still be able to be printed out cheaply by the metre and have the commercial edge of being flexible and light; they just have the potential to capture a lot more energy.”

See also:

New Solar Cell Technologies