Breakthrough Efficient, Paintable Solar Cells

An anonymous reader writes "A new solar cell material has been discovered that converts 30% of the sun's energy to electricity." Here's another solar news story. These new cells can harness infrared light which is why they are so much more efficient.

Comments

How much energy?

[DaveInAustin]

One key thing that isn't answered in the article (or almost any other articles about "alternative energy sources). How does energy does it take to make this material compare with home much energy it can produce?

Painted shirts?

[strider_starslayer]

I notice his primary theoretical application was painting shirts so that you can charge your Ipod. What about buildings damnit!

With a nearly 5x increase in power efficency, and the ability to simply paint it on this material strikes me as being ideal for partially powering houses. You paint your roof every summer (Or if the paint is particularly durable every 5 years) and get a grid tie in possibly paying nothing during particiarly sunny monthes.

Of course I supose it ultimately comes down to how expensive this stuff is. When I last looked into solar grid tie ins, it would have cost about 30,000 (cdn.) to get only a few kilowatts of output- the panels were insured for 25 years; and it would have taken 20 for them to pay for themselves, and that dosen't count the concept of any of them breaking in heavy hail, or snow buildup. Not a great investment.

If this paint is durable enough to be put on clothes, and cheap enough to have that done as well, I think that painting the roofs of houses should be the primary applicatino, not keeping all your portable gadgets charged...

Re:Hate to be a Pessimist, BUT.....

[tallbill]

Start your own energy company.
Invest in a technological breakthrough.
In a Free Enterprise system you are free to do that.

You don't have to wait around for anyone else, do it yourself.

There is nothing wrong with big profit as long as you don't enslave people in the process. Also, if you make a lot, then you can share a lot.

Wealthy and powerful people are not categorically and necessarily greedy and selfish as you seem to imply with your post. But being wealthy and powerful makes one (I believe) more susceptible to personality traits that are loathsome to many others.
With great wealth comes great responsibility. Wealth in this sense is a curse. But the curse can be overcome.

Re:Only at the poles, for half the year

[darthdavid]

Actually, a much better way to store electricty is to have a massive resivoir that fills with water using pumps driven w/ excess power during the day and then drains out turning the pumps backwards as turbines at night. Very efficient.

Re:Only at the poles, for half the year

[Rei]

The "5 fold efficiency" gain thing is a bit deceptive. Read the articles carefully: They're comparing a basic organic solar cell with the combination of this organic solar cell with the best (expensive and inflexible) inorganic solar cells to handle the visible spectrum. If you combined this with another plastic cell, you'd end up with a far lower conversion efficiency (although it'd still be a big help).

There are lots of neat solar tech innovations on the horizon, mind you - however, each one tends to address a single issue, and there are many involved in solar. This one addresses capture of infrared on an organic cell. Some other ones that have good potential are things like using a thin layer of luminescent material over/in the cell to downconvert the light (many luminescent materials absorb UV and release the energy in the visible spectrum).

I think that, in 5-10 years if tech keeps advancing this way, we should be able to get organic cells that'll approach the efficiency of today's polycrystaline cells. Which is good, because the silicon cells are expensive :P My partner and I have been looking at installing some in the future, and it'd cost 20,000-30,000$ just for the cells to supply our house's energy. And weight is a definite factor - you have to get an inspection to see if they'll weigh too much for your roof, and if they do, you have to pay for reinforcement of the roof before installation.