2007-10-05
Cambridge at the centre of £5m solar initiative - [Finance & Economics]
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http://xjtupsa.blogbus.com/logs/10164829.html
By Lautaro Vargas, 04 October 2007
The Technology Partnership (TTP) and the University of Cambridge have been assigned the task of developing rolls of solar energy harnessing film that can be delivered at radically lower costs and used on a wide range of surfaces including roofs and windows.
Potentially saving more than 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the Carbon Trust’s new £5 million project intends to realise the full potential of organic photovoltaic (PV) technology and make it cost effective within 10 years while in the process establishing a world-leading industry sector in the UK.
TTP and the University are the Carbon Trust’s preferred partners for the programme which aims to deploy more than 1GW of organic PV by 2017, which could initially be used for simple applications such as charging mobile phones and laptops.
The organic PV systems created by the Carbon Trust’s programme will be cheaper and simpler to implement than currently possible, which will help to make PV technology widely available and increase its take up.
The sheets of PV film, made from a polymer base, will be able to sit on a wide range of surfaces, including windows or building roofs, to capture solar energy – the largest energy flow in our ecosystem.
The funding for the University and TTP is expected to accelerate the commercial exploitation of organic PV by several years by combining intellectual property, scientific expertise and manufacturing excellence.
A core aim is to create modules with five per cent efficiency and a lifetime of five years that can be manufactured on a roll-to-roll web up to one metre wide.
By focusing on Cambridge, the project will be able to tap into the region’s existing expertise which has launched firms such as Cambridge Display Technology and Plastic Logic, both spun out of Cambridge’s renowned Cavendish Laboratory.
“This is a timely opportunity to build on technology for ‘organic electronics’ developed in the University,” said Sir Richard Friend, Cavendish Professor of Physics in the University of Cambridge. “We will capitalise on the local Cambridge strengths in taking science to manufacturing.”
This project is the first of the Carbon Trust’s Directed Research programmes and sits alongside the Carbon Trust’s other initiatives supporting low carbon innovation and the commercialisation of fledgling low carbon technologies in the UK.
“This is a groundbreaking project that has the potential to make the UK a world leader in third generation PV technology,” said Tom Delay, chief executive at the Carbon Trust.
“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 ten years, it could become as cheap as the power currently delivered to our homes.
“It is because the carbon savings and commercial potential for this technology are so vast that we have acted now to take a good, but expensive idea and turn it into a cost effective, easily available reality.”
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