A new technology developing a solar cell on an A3-sized plaque or steel plate is being developed

In Australia, attempts have been made to create flexible and low-cost solar cells by printing solar cells on plastic plates or metal plates using conventional printing technology. The solar cell produced by this new technology is thin like paper, it is expected to be put to practical use for use in various scenes, such as installation on a wall surface of a high-rise building and embedding in a case for a notebook PC I will.

Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium
http://www.vicosc.unimelb.edu.au/


CTRL + P: Printing Australia's largest solar cells | CSIRO
http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Media/Printing-Australias-largest-solar-cells.aspx


The way the solar cell is actually printed out can be seen from the following movie.

Printing Australia's largest solar cells - YouTube


This study called VICOSCThe Australian Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)And the University of Melbourne, Monash University and industrial partners. VICOSC makes A3 sized organic solar cell printable, researcher Scott Watkins says "This size of solar cell allows us many things." If it is put into practical use, it will be possible to use it as advertisement, use it for power supply of light, and to charge it by embedding it in case of notebook PC.


This solar cell is worth 200 thousand Australian dollars (about 20 million yen), and the research team succeeded in making solar cells as small as nail size 10 square cm over three years. With a new printer, it is now possible to create solar cells with a width of 30 cm.

David Jones of the University of Melbourne, who conducts research, said, "We are using the same technology that prints images on T - shirts," one of the greatest points of this project It is said that it is using an existing printing technology which is easy to obtain. For printing, we will use organic inks to print solar cells on steel or plastics that are as thin as paper at a speed of 10 m / min. That is, it calculates one solar cell every 2 seconds. Because it is very thin, if it is put into practical use it will also be possible to build high-rise buildings using materials directly printed with solar cells.

The following are the printers in CSIRO.


It looks like the photo solar cell is actually printed.


There are types of solar cells such as silicon type, compound type, organic type etc, but organic solar cells adopted in VICOSC generate electric power of 10 ~ 50 W per square mil, It is thought that energy efficiency can be increased.

The project is developing focusing on the current industrial partners, but there is a possibility of working with other companies as we operate pilot version and programs.