Colourful 'solar glass' means entire buildings can generate clean power

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/12/printed-solar-glass-panels-oxford-photovoltaics?intcmp=122


Oxford Photovoltaics uses non-toxic organic solar cell materials printed directly on to glass to produce clean energy. Photograph: Oxford Photovoltaics

A solar power company capable of "printing" colourful glass that can generate electricity from the sun's energy announced a £2m funding boost on Tuesday.

Oxford Photovoltaics, a spin-off from the University of Oxford, said the investment from clean-tech investors MTI Partners will help its solar glass, which can be dyed almost any colour, take a step closer to the commercial market.

"What we say here is rather than attach [solar] photovoltaics to the building, why not make the building the photovoltaics?" Kevin Arthur, the company's founder and CEO, told the Guardian. "If you decide to build a building out of glass, then you've already decided to pay for the glass. If you add this, you're adding a very small extra cost. [The solar cell treatment] costs no more than 10% of the cost of the facade."

These generally cost between £600 and £1,000 per square metre, meaning the new cell treatment wouild cost just £60-£100 extra per square metre.

[rgbecker]

1. $1000-$1500/sq meter for glass wall panels?

Seems high.

[FBaggins]

3. That's not out of the range.

Depending on how "structural" the glass needs to be for the application (and how insulating), it can run even higher.

[DetlefK]

2. The term is "Organic Photovoltaics" (OPV).

The efficiency is lower than silicon-based solar-cells (it's a very active field of research though), but they are cheap as hell: You just have to smudge chemicals on glass.
The trick is finding the chemicals which will give you the best efficiency and how to put them on the substrate so they just intermix in the right way.