Local engineering firm tests newly invented "Window Shutter Solar Panels"

Konarka has developed its affordable Power Plastic film with several manufacturing techniques, from an early proprietary printing process (pictured above in image rotated for space) to a new breakthrough with inkjet printers that should dramatically reduce costs, with applications including sensors and RFID. 
 

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The new "Window Shutter Solar Panels" are among the list of many succesful inventions conceived by local entrepreneur Paul O. Martin who lives in Buford.

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Startup Makes Cheap Solar Film Cells ... With an Inkjet Printer
 Konarka has developed its affordable Power Plastic film with several manufacturing techniques, from an early proprietary printing process

This year could bring the Silicon Valley-funded renaissance in solar power we've all been waiting for. First, San Jose-based Nanosolar began delivering its affordable thin-film solar coating, followed by a construction boom in American solar thermal power plants—essentially the reflective equivalent of geothermal power. Now, for the first time, the solar cell revolution is arriving by droplet.

Konarka Technologies, the Massachusetts-based company we first recognized with a 2005 Breakthrough Award for its affordable Power Plastic solar film, said this week that it has successfully manufactured those thin solar cells using an inkjet printer. In addition to decreasing production costs because it relies on existing inkjet technology, the printable Power Plastic cells can be applied to a range of small-scale, highly variable power opportunities, from indoor sensors to small RFID installations.

With printers now capable of producing solar cells, other companies might be able to use plastics and other colors in developing new kinds of power-packing film. But the inkjet process is just one of several different manufacturing techniques Konarka has been busy demonstrating for its solar collectors over the last three years. "Compared to current PV technologies, the Power Plastic has an advantage in flexibility, greater sensitivity to low light and versatility," Konarka president and CEO Rick Hess says of the film cells, which are fused from liquid containing semiconducting polymers.

By 2009 at the latest, Konarka plans to bring multiple forms of its product to market—everything from tiny cells for sensors to fabric-based and larger building panels. Hess says the company is currently working with U.S. Green Building Council LEED designers on custom installations.

Perhaps more promising are all the as-yet-unknown applications for the flexible, plastic solar panels. "We constantly receive calls from innovators who have read about the cells and propose unique—sometimes wild and crazy—concepts for the technology," Hess tells PM.

The burning question for DIYers and eco-conscious geeks alike remains whether we can expect to see rolls of Power Plastic on the shelves of home improvement stores anytime soon. Not exactly, Hess says. "Check back in two years and we'll have an update."

Konarka has developed technology to create rolls of plastic that can convert light to electricity--a design that will result in solar power being embedded in everything from flashing Coke bottles to wireless sensors, the company claims.

Earlier this month, Konarka said that it has demonstrated the use of inkjet printing to manufacture its solar cells. And at a recent investor conference here, chairman and founder Howard Berke described Konarka's longer-term plans to embed small solar plastic cells in hundreds of products.

In the second half of this year, Berke said, Konarka will make its first shipments to customers and will announce the location of a factory.

Initially the company intends to make portable solar chargers for gadgets as well as self-powered sensors, lights, and smart cards. Farther down the road, it plans to make solar windows and power-generating cloth.

In four years, Berke said, the company intends to have products for the building-integrated photovoltaics (PV) market with "bifacial cells," for placement on windows, that can convert electricity from both sides.

It is also working on a project, sponsored by the Department of Defense, to make fibers that can be woven into clothing, he said.

"You'll be able to wear, carry, integrate PV," said Berke. "Wherever plastics occur, you'll have PV."

But some solar industry watchers have become skeptical about whether this technology will ever live up to its promise. Konarka, founded in 2001, has raised several rounds of capital and taken government grants but still doesn't have a commercial product.

Plastic solar cells have the advantage of being flexible, unlike traditional silicon, but they're not nearly as efficient as rooftop panels.

Konarka's cells, which are made with a roll-to-roll manufacturing process, convert about 5 percent of the light that hits them into electricity, whereas typically solar panels with silicon cells are 16 percent to 20 percent efficient.

But its organic photovoltaic cells can convert low light, can be tuned for specific wavelengths, and can work even when the light hits at a low angle, Berke said.

"We see this as next-generation thin-film PV technology and not competing with silicon," he said