Earth We Are One

Australian solar technicians with the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium have announced that they will soon put a new printable solar cell technology on the market.
Trueactivist.com
Image: CSIRO
Printable Solar Panels May Be Coming to a Device Near You
Australian solar technicians with the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium have announced that they will soon be prepared to put a new printable solar cell technology on the market. The team has been working on the project for several years in coordination with scientists from the CSIRO, and researchers with the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
Fiona Scholes, one of CSIRO’s senior researchers said that this new technology can actually print solar cells directly onto plastic and other materials. This can eventually be used to print solar cells onto electronic devices like computers and phones so they have a constant source of free and renewable energy.
There can also be a number of commercial and industrial uses for this technology as well.
“We print them onto plastic in more or less the same way we print our plastic banknotes. Connecting our solar panels is as simple as connecting a battery. It’s very cheap. The way in which it looks and works is quite different to conventional silicon rooftop solar,” Scholes told ABC News.
Scholes also pointed out that the cells are somewhat transparent, which would allow them to be printed on windows to bring power into homes and buildings.
“We would like to improve the efficiency of solar panels – we need to develop solar inks to generate more energy from sunlight. We are confident we can push the technology further in the years to come,” Scholes said.