Energy from the Print Shop

Just 0.50 EUR per Watt

Nevertheless, experts see good opportunities for the technology. “Nanotechnology opens up new opportunities to further reduce the costs of photovoltaics and offers the potential to open up new fields of use in the application of solar energy,” says Eicke Weber, head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer-ISE). In Germany, the Federal government and companies want to invest 360 million EUR as part of the organic photovoltaic technology initiative by 2012. The expectations in the initiative, to which corporations such as BASF, Bosch, Merck and Schott belong, are high: According to the German Engineering Federation (Verband deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau), the technology should be producing major quantities of solar energy as of 2015. And doing so as a viable competitor to mains power. “Production costs of less than 0.50 EUR per peak watt are possible,” says Christoph Brabec, head of technology at nanocell developer Konarka.

The previous achievements of the companies feed the hope that a market introduction can be successful by 2015. Plextronics, G24 Innovations in Wales and Konarka in Lowell, Massachusetts, are already producing nanocells, and want to considerably increase their production soon. In 2008, Konarka acquired the former plant of the bankrupt camera manufacturer Polaroid. There, according to Brabec, up to a gigawatt (GW) of solar power capacity per year can roll off the production lines in the future.