Researchers at Australia’s Newcastle University are closing to producing PV solar cells that can be painted onto rooftops.
Professor Paul Dastoor and his team have been working to create solar cells that can be printed directly onto surfaces like metal sheets, and they are aiming to eventually develop solar cells that can simply be painted directly onto surfaces.
The team has been working with semiconducting polymers, a type of plastic that can conduct electricity, to make a plastic that can create PV energy. They broke the polymers down into particles that can be suspended in water, which led to the idea of making a water-based solar paint.
Professor Dastoor of the University of Newcastle. Credit: Newcastle Herald
Professor Dastoor and his team started by making solar cells on a 2mm by 2mm base that could be printed using a regular inkjet printer. But now they’re building a machine to print solar paint onto hundreds of metres of plastic sheeting, to be installed onto rooftops.
According to Professor Dastoor, covering a roof could power an average home the same way solar panels do – but at a much lower cost. “[T]he installation cost could be approximately one-tenth of installing a silicon solar system that produces the same amount of electricity,” said Dastoor.
The printing facility will open later in 2013, and Professor Dastoor aims to make the printed solar cells commercially viable within three years at a cost of about $7 per square metre.
