Researchers Give Spray-On Solar Cells Three to Five Years

University of Texas researchers are developing spray-on solar cells that could be ready for widespread use in just three to five years. Now, their work is very similar to some solar paint concepts we’ve seen in the past. The difference is that these innovators are confident enough to quantify their product’s market readiness.

Their pitch is familiar: they’ll create photovoltaic panels at one-tenth the cost of current panels.  These solar cells can be sprayed onto plastic, stainless steel, windows and even the siding or rooftops of existing buildings.

Their inclusion of a three to five-year timetable is exciting, but comes with one big and all-too-familiar if. Their technology, a result of collaboration among the University’s engineering, chemistry, biochemistry and computer engineering departments, still has a lot of work to do. They claim their product will be one-tenth the cost of existing technology but, in order to be of any real use, it must somehow become ten times more efficient than it is now.

Currently, the spray-on solar panels have an efficiency rating of one percent. The research group has set 10-percent conversion efficiency as their Holy Grail, and they think they can do it within the aforementioned time span. As the group’s leader, Brian Korgel, told GreenBiz.com, “If we get to 10 percent, then there’s real potential for commercialization. If it works, I think you could see it being used in three to five years.”

Those are some big IFs. Improving efficiency by 10 times in less than five years?  But it’s taken researchers several years to reach just one percent. And they need to figure out how to collect and channel the electricity created from spraying solar paint onto the side of a building.

The art of applying solar “ink” to a substrate such as metal sheets is nothing new. Indeed, Nanosolar is already producing just that type of solar panel. The real challenge is the spray-on factor, essentially developing solar electricity in a bottle (someone trademark Solar Genie now). You have to create it, bottle it, get it to stick and be durable, as well as harness it.

Nanotechnology may be the way of the future for cheap solar power generation, but this three to five-year plan sounds like a ploy to bring media attention to their research… job well done.

Posted on September 9th in Solar Products by Dan.