Any energy production system will need to become more environmentally sustainable, if it seriously wants to continue to exist at all. And 3D printing may be the manufacturing method of choice. Giants such as GE know this already and are implementing 3D printing to optimize many traditional energy production methods. It turns out 3D printing will be key in solar energy, as well, since future photovoltaic systems will probably be made up of polymeric, that is organic, materials 3D printed into custom shapes.
These OPV’s (Organic PhotoVoltaics) are being researched by the UK’s National Physics Laboratory and it is no coincidence, since – as it turns out – OPVs are more productive in cloudy whether than when exposed to direct sunlight. Most of all, since they are based on organic polymers, they can be quickly produced and deposited, even over large surface areas, with 3D printing.
The video below, published by Plasticphotovoltaics.org (a hub for OPV Research at the Technical University of Denmark) shows just how quickly and easily the entire photovoltaic assembly process is. The solar park in the video is the first ever organic solar cell park, using polymer solar cells developed in-house.
The energy payback time for the practical installation of polymer solar cells on the wooden 250 square meter platform is 180 days, when operated in southern Spain. In Denmark, where the installation is currently located, the energy payback time is 277 days. The installation and de-installation rates have been demonstrated to be as fast as 100 m/min. This makes the solar park installation extremely quick in comparison with all existing solar cell technologies.
Another interesting aspect, as the National Physics Laboratory reports, is that these plastic photovoltaic cells are more efficient in producing energy when exposed to lower lighting conditions. That does not mean that they produce more energy when the whether is cloudy but that, in such conditions, they are more efficient than standard silicon photovoltaics.
For this reason, they can produce with an efficiency of around 13% during a cloudy day. This data has been a bit of a boomerang for the growth of OPVs, as standard commercial photovoltaics can reach an efficiency of 20% conversion, when exposed to direct sunlight. Most current rating systems only consider maximum efficiency and do not consider that, in cloudy conditions, the efficiency of standard photovoltaics drops well below the 13% margin of OPV’s.
Since solar power has been growing so rapidly, many now predict that OPVs could be at the cusp of mass adoption, especially considering the much lower costs and manufacturing requirements. As explained by the Danish Department of Energy Conversion and Storage (DTU), a polymer solar cell consists of a series of thin functional layers deposited on a polymer foil. By employing inks containing the active materials, standard printing technology may be used to deposit a layer very fast on an entire roll, much like a giant 3D printer. Such roll-to-roll processes allow upscaling of the production to very large scale with a limited capital cost.
I wonder what the durability of these?