Bright future for British solar company

bjb42 — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Cambridge Enterprise, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s commercialisation office, and the Carbon Trust have announced the launch of Eight19 Limited, a new solar energy company which will develop and manufacture high performance, lower cost plastic solar cells for high-growth volume markets.

Spun-out from the Carbon Trust's Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-TTP Advanced Photovoltaic Research Accelerator, this latest commercial phase will focus efforts on developing product prototypes, backed by a £4.5m investment from the Carbon Trust and leading international specialty chemicals company Rhodia.

Eight19, so called as it takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds for light to travel from the sun to the earth, has been created in partnership with Professor Sir Richard Friend, Professor Henning Sirringhaus and Professor Neil Greenham of Cambridge's internationally renowned Cavendish Laboratory, and technology development company TTP.

With improvements in efficiency and lifetime, breakthroughs in organic photovoltaic technology could provide solar power at a price substantially lower than that offered by 1st and 2nd generation technologies for certain applications, which could open up new markets for solar.

Eight19's focus on the low cost potential of solar cells made with semiconducting plastics (also known as organic photovoltaics, or OPV) is built on the Cavendish Laboratory's capability to develop techniques for fabricating large scale plastic electronic devices on flexible materials using roll-to-roll processes. ̽��ֱ��company will continue to be actively engaged with the Cavendish and its innovative research output.

̽��ֱ��market for organic solar cells has the potential to reach $500 million by 2015 and to grow four fold to $2 billion by 2020 (Nanomarkets, 2009) driven by applications such as building-integrated photovoltaics, and could save up to 900 million tonnes of CO2 by 2050 - some 1.5 times the UK's current annual emissions.

̽��ֱ��Eight19 team is pursuing a design-for-manufacture strategy that focuses on the unique attributes of organic photovoltaics, combining both specific product performance characteristics and low cost of energy.

Unlike other more familiar thin film solar platforms, organic solar cells are not inherently limited by constraints around material supply and toxicity, and benefit from a number of fundamental advantages including potentially very low cost production enabled by low temperature and high throughput processing typical of plastic films. Organic solar cells potentially deliver further value throughout the supply chain, from ease of installation for construction companies to producers seeking simplified manufacturing integration.

Dr Robert Trezona, Head of R&D at the Carbon Trust said, " ̽��ֱ��launch of Eight19 and the deployment of low cost organic solar cells could help to revolutionise solar power production by opening up new markets. Cost reduction through the development of advanced technology and innovative design are key to driving forward mass production and making solar power more affordable."

"This investment is perfectly in line with our strategy to explore new promising market segments fitting with our sustainable development commitment. Furthermore, we are convinced that open innovation is key to leverage our research and development capability. We are happy to work in close partnership with prominent scientists to develop this breakthrough technology", explains Pascal Juery, Group Executive Vice-President of Rhodia.

Professor Sir Richard Friend, Co-founder of Eight19 commented, "This represents a great opportunity to transfer new technology out of the university, based on recent advances in fundamental science. Solar cells made with organic semiconductors work very differently to those made with silicon and are closer in operating principle to photosynthesis in green plants."

A world class management team underpins the technology development, with significant track record in making low cost applications using scalable roll-to-roll technology. Co-founder and Board Director Professor Sir Richard Friend is a world expert who pioneered the study of the electronic properties of a class of plastics called conjugated polymers and revolutionised the understanding of using these materials to make plastic semiconductors. He also previously co-founded Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Plastic Logic.

Solar energy company to develop and manufacture high performance, lower cost plastic solar cells.

Solar cells made with organic semiconductors work very differently to those made with silicon and are closer in operating principle to photosynthesis in green plants.

Professor Sir Richard Friend, Co-founder of Eight19

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Solar Mosaic

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Sunny times ahead for solar power

ns480 — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:57:11 +0000

Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels offer great promise as a source of clean and renewable electricity generation but the high cost of manufacturing the silicon-based PV panels has been a prohibitive drawback to their use. A new research and development programme led by Professor Sir Richard Friend, Dr Neil Greenham and Professor Henning Sirringhaus at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, in collaboration with ̽��ֱ��Technology Partnership, hopes to solve this problem. ̽��ֱ��team are using a plastic-based technology to create the solar cells. A prototype has already been built and the new funding will allow scaling up to large sheets of PV film that can be sited on windows or roofs to capture solar energy.

By 2017, the aim is for these plastic solar cells to be delivering 1GW of power, equivalent to carbon dioxide savings of more than 1 million tonnes per year. ‘This is a timely opportunity to build on technology developed in the ̽��ֱ��,’ said Professor Friend. ‘We will capitalise on the local Cambridge strengths in taking science to manufacturing.’

̽��ֱ��Carbon Trust is funding the initiative. Tom Delay, Chief Executive, explained the importance of the research: ’We believe this exciting new organic PV technology is our best shot at dramatically reducing the cost of solar PV to the point that, in the next 10 years, it could become as cheap as the power currently delivered to our homes.’

For more information, please contact Dr Neil Greenham(ncg11@cam.ac.uk) or the Carbon Trust (www.carbontrust.co.uk; Tel: +44 (0)20 7544 3100).

A new initiative funded by the Carbon Trust hopes to make solar power an affordable choice for homeowners within 10 years.

We will capitalise on the local Cambridge strengths in taking science to manufacturing.

Professor Friend

Cambridge Display Technology

Prototype solar panel

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̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Carbon Trust

Bright future for British solar company

Sunny times ahead for solar power