
Organic solar cells set 'remarkable' energy record - jaza
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45132427
======
ChuckMcM
I hope this makes it into production at some point. I had a lot of hope for
the CIGS stuff[1] but they haven't been able to get to the point where they
have enough efficiency at at low enough cost to flip them into the mainstream
to get mass market economics of scale to work for them.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_indium_gallium_selenide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_indium_gallium_selenide_solar_cells)

~~~
innocentfelon
CIGS, like CdTe, has always been limited by material economics. As demand goes
up, the world economy’s limited production of these exotic byproducts can’t
keep up.

Believe it or don’t, the last time I crunched the numbers, it was the Selenium
in CIGS that they’re having the most trouble unlocking more of.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is surprising, the early 2000's there was a huge uproar over all of the
selenium runoff going into the San Francisco bay. At the time I wondered if
there was an economic use for selenium and if extracting it from water was
economically feasible.

------
jartelt
17% efficiency is a very nice result for OPV. I studied OPV tech for my PhD in
2010-2015. The field really started to shrink once perovskite solar cells were
discovered and quickly beat out OPV in performance. Many people were
predicting that OPV research was dead at that point. Glad to see that some
researchers are still pushing hard and making progress!

~~~
selimthegrim
I'm still holding out hope that these multiphoton singlet fission systems are
made to work.

~~~
froogie
Picked my curiousity, care to elaborate for me and others?

~~~
selimthegrim
[https://www.oe.phy.cam.ac.uk/research/photovoltaics/ultrasin...](https://www.oe.phy.cam.ac.uk/research/photovoltaics/ultrasing)

------
ohiovr
How do plastic solar panels stand up to UV radiation over a long time? UV
radiation degrades most plastics.

~~~
Brakenshire
The two problems historically have been efficiency and endurance. Endurance
has been in the range of 2-5 years, so not good. Although I think that’s more
to do with reactivity in the presence of oxygen than UV. If UV was the problem
you could always just filter it out, albeit at an efficiency cost, whereas
total encapsulation is more difficult and expensive.

------
driverdan
Don't OPVs still have the problem of breaking down too quickly?

> "I am very positive for OPV, and it may not need five years," he added.

Ah, the magic five years. Whenever you see someone say it's five years away it
means they have no idea when, or if it'll come to market.

------
agumonkey
It's also important to take the fabrication process into account. I'd love OPV
to be less polluting (or less costly to recycle waste) than polysilicon or
thin-film. Even at 17% efficiency.

------
dvh
17%

~~~
mikeyouse
And on one of my favorite charts, that red triangle at the very bottom is
about to jump substantially up the Y-axis:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/PVeff%28...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/PVeff%28rev180716%29.jpg)

~~~
acchow
FTA: "Commercial solar photovoltaics usually covert 15-22% of sunlight, with a
world record of 26.6% reached in Japan in 2016."

And yet your linked chart shows datapoints >40%. What gives?

~~~
Areading314
Commercial solar photovoltaics typically refer to "standard" silicon solar
cells which have efficiency around the 15-22% range. The 40% cells in the
graphic are for materials systems that are much too expensive to be
commercially viable.

~~~
mikeyouse
Yep, the very high efficiency cells are typically reserved for highly
specialized areas where cost doesn’t matter.. You’ll see Boeing’s name a lot
near the top of the efficiency list for the exotic cell types, their lab’s
website should clue everyone in to what their main purpose is:
[https://www.spectrolab.com](https://www.spectrolab.com)

They list 31% efficiencies for their cells that can fly today which must be
near the limit of commercialization / certification. Still pretty good though,
that’s 50% more efficient than a standard panel, and at several $10s of
thousands per kg into space, clearly worth it!

~~~
pvarangot
28/30% cells are common in spacecraft and have been for more than five years,
but they are expensive. A little less than 10k for something like 1 square
meter only for the cells wouldn't be crazy.

~~~
mikeyouse
It looks like Boeing's latest multijunction line ships at 30.7% efficient:

[https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics](https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics)

Which seems about right, but what I didn't realize is that they're shipping
>40% concentrators too. That's pretty great!

[https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics](https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html#cells_cics)

(That last link was supposed to be for the concentrator section at the bottom
of that page, but I don't think it's a normal # bookmark)

------
ksec
Light Reflection, which is one of the problem with Solar panel installation in
cities areas. You could literally beam light into other buildings windows.

I wonder if Organic Solar Cells fix this?

Or some day where we could produce Windows Glasses that absorb some of the UV
and turns it into electricity for cheap. I know we have the tech but it seems
still to expensive for now.

~~~
xavieralexandre
It's expensive and coloured instead of totally transparent but it indeed
exists outside of the lab. They did build a wall out of them in my former
campus:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-
sensitized_solar_cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-
sensitized_solar_cell)

[https://actu.epfl.ch/news/epfl-s-campus-has-the-world-s-
firs...](https://actu.epfl.ch/news/epfl-s-campus-has-the-world-s-first-solar-
window)

Non-native English speaker here: Is there a word to describe something which
is transparent but alters colour?

~~~
gandalfian
Tinted?

------
Nasrudith
I wonder about the endurance of these organic cells aside from their strides
in efficiency. I recall hearing a few "exotic" solar cell materials having the
issue of being too ephemeral especially for the toxic materials involved
despite technically better efficiency in operation and they got beaten out by
cheap silicon. The applications of these would be remarkable if they lack
additional complications.

The title set up sounds like a lazy scientist joke : technically you can call
planting a forest, call them organic solar cells and burn them later for a
non-direct electricity solution without doing any research.

------
thinkingkong
Amazing.

I dont understand nearly enough about materials science to grok how you
iterate to such a discovery. Does anyone else have intimate knowledge of the
grind?

~~~
pjc50
The best description I've read of the iterative process of chemistry
development is good old "Ignition!" by John D Clark, on the subject of rocket
fuels.

Generally what happens is a simple theoretical model predicts what the most
efficient compounds to try are - but not all their properties can be predicted
theoretically. So somebody has to try them and find out what all the handling
and fabrication difficulties are, then develop solutions for the sub-problems.

(Does anyone have the scihub link to the actual study referenced in the
article?)

~~~
tim333
[http://sci-hub.tw/http://science.sciencemag.org/content/earl...](http://sci-
hub.tw/http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/08/08/science.aat2612)

------
michaels9876
Solar energy is very problematic and for now, isn't going to solve the world's
energy problems.

For one thing, it generates energy for just when the sun is shining and no
clouds overhead, which aren't usually peak hours. There are other problems as
well. [https://sciencing.com/future-solar-power-obstacles-
problems-...](https://sciencing.com/future-solar-power-obstacles-
problems-21852.html)

I'm waiting for Fusion power...

~~~
rileyphone
You'll be waiting 10 years for the rest of your life.

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
Progress!

First, it was always 30 years away, then 15 years, now it's down to 10 years.
Not sure how to determine the asymptote, but it'll doubtless happen with the
Singularity.

Links:

Why Nuclear Fusion Is Always 30 Years Away
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/03/23/nuclear-
fu...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/03/23/nuclear-fusion-
reactor-research/)

Nuclear fusion is 15 years away from reality, say MIT engineers
[https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/nuclear-fusion-
is-1...](https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/nuclear-fusion-is-15-years-
away-from-reality-say-mit-engineers/)

~~~
jandrese
There's still the big question mark of "will it be economically viable?" By
the time Fusion is ready we might be heavily transitioning to cheaper
renewable energy sources and not want to subsidize expensive power.

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
Very good point. Doubtless though, if it ever achieves technical viability,
fusion will have a niche, because not all applications require economic
viability. Can't beat the energy density it provides, either. Would be great
for outer solar system missions.

