After 15 years, scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia have advanced the commercial potential of their flexible perovskite cells printed on long continuous rolls of flexible plastic film following the opening of their AUD 6.8 million ($4.4 million) Printed Photovoltaic (PV) Facility in Clayton, 23 kilometres southwest of Melbourne.
The solar films are thin, lightweight, portable and semi-transparent, making them suitable for various applications including construction, space, defence, mining, emergency management, disaster relief, and wearables.
For example, printed PV films can be laminated onto windows or other glazing or incorporated into tents or sails for recreational or emergency purposes
CSIRO National Facilities and Collections Digital Executive Director Professor Elanor Huntington said the facility will enable a thriving Australian flexible solar manufacturing industry.
“Through CSIRO’s new Printed PV Facility, industry partners can access both researcher expertise and specialised equipment to improve and apply flexible solar technology in novel ways, anywhere there is sunlight,” Huntington said.
“The facility not only offers incredible opportunities for Australian manufacturers but also contributes to addressing global energy challenges and advancing the transition to net zero.”
CSIRO’s Renewable Energy Systems Group Leader Dr Anthony Chesman said printed flexible solar is not intended to replace silicon rooftop panels, but rather to complement them.
“This printed solar technology unlocks entirely new applications for affordable, versatile and sustainable energy generation,” Chesman said.
“We’re using specially formulated inks which can be coded to give uniform films on the surface. The thin film solar cells comprise of four to five discrete layers, and each of those layers requires a special ink to serve a special purpose inside the solar cell,” Chesman told pv magazine.
“So, you have the photo absorber layer and then you have charge transport layers which are required to extract the charge, and then the electrodes to conduct the electricity. We work with two broad classes of photo absorbers, because they’re solution processable, unlike silicon.”
“We have organic solar cells that use organic polymers or small molecules which are specially designed to have optoelectronic properties, so they do conduct electricity and the other one is the perovskite materials which is a mixture of organic and inorganic materials,” he said.
The new system to be employed is highly automated with multiple printing and laminating steps performed in a single continuous operation, which cuts down on production costs and the upfront investment needed to get started. Developed by CSIRO it’s able to produce up to 14,000 test solar cells a day to fine-tune design and performance.
The lab is also equipped to explore other fields that use printable materials for battery and hydrogen technologies, opening doors to a wider range of innovative applications.
CSIRO set a new efficiency record for its flexible solar technology in March 2024.
“We got a lot of interest at that point, but there’s a number of factors which determine whether it’s commercially viable. Certainly, efficiency at a certain point is critical, and life time is another issue, and cost,” Chesman said.
“I definitely think in the next five to 10 years we’ll see commercial production of these materials, but it’s a question of scale and cost. First, we’d be looking at niche applications where there’s a premium applied to the form factor, where people really need rollable solar panels that are light weight, so disaster relief for example.”
“When we lower the cost and push it further out, I think agrivoltaics and integration into green houses is an area with a lot of potential, and the recreational market, for caravans, tents, anywhere people need electricity off the grid,” Chesman said.
Updated: 30 October, 2024.
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