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Sunday 3 November 2024
CSIRO opens $6.8m printing facility to make flexible solar panels.
The CSIRO has opened a new $6.8m printing facility that can make continuous rolls of flexible solar panels.
Leader
of CSIRO's Renewable Energy Systems Group Dr Anthony Chesman believes
the printing facility will bridge the gap between testing and industrial
production.
What's next?
The
CSIRO is seeking application ideas and industry partners to take the
flexible solar panel technology to full-scale production. They foresee
uses in recreation, defence, disaster relief and agriculture.
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Solar
panels that can be printed out like newspapers and rolled up to fit in
your pocket are one step closer thanks to a new development by the
national science agency.
CSIRO
has opened a $6.8 million facility in Clayton, Victoria, to take its
printed flexible solar panel technology out of the lab and into the real
world.
Printable solar cell technology
Printing solar cells
involves suspending advanced solar materials called perovskite in ink.
The ink can then be printed onto long continuous rolls of flexible film
made of plastic that conducts electricity.
In
March this year, the CSIRO team reached a milestone, achieving a
world-first efficiency level of 15.5 per cent. That breakthrough puts
the printed panels roughly on par with the capabilities of common
rooftop solar panels, most of which sit between 14 per cent and 18 per
cent efficiency.
Laboratory to fabrication
The
leader of CSIRO's Renewable Energy Systems Group, Dr Anthony Chesman,
told ABC News Breakfast this new facility was aimed at taking the next
step towards commercial production.
"With
the printed photovoltaics facility, we're now bridging the gap between
what we do in the lab and what we can potentially do in industry to get
it out into the hands of people," Dr Chesman said.
"Our new system is highly automated.
"The
multiple printing and laminating steps are performed in a single
continuous operation, which significantly cuts down on production costs
and the up-front investment needed to get started."
The new facility can produce 14,000 test solar cells a day to fine-tune their design and performance.
"We're not quite at newspaper printing steps yet … but we're heading there."
A solar panel in your pocket
So, if the CSIRO can print out flexible, lightweight solar panels like newspapers, do we need rooftop solar anymore?
Dr Chesman says printed flexible solar is not intended to replace silicon rooftop panels, but rather to complement them.
"We
know silicon solar cells are fantastic for a whole range of
applications, but really, there's some places where they're not great,"
he said.
"Think about in
greenhouses or polytunnels. There'll be instances where you do want to
coat those with solar panels to absorb light, but normal solar cells
just won't be suitable.
"This is where we might be able to fill that gap."
Dr
Chesman's team has sent flexible solar panels to space to see if they
can power a satellite. They also have prototypes for consumer
electronics and recreational use.
"Think
about camping. Also defence, disaster relief — where we have to get
solar panels to people quickly, where they're cut off from existing
power supplies — and agriculture", he added.
What's next?
The team is now seeking application ideas and industry partners to take the technology to full-scale production.
"We're
great at developing the technology, but it's really the end user that
best knows how this can be applied in the real world," he said.
"So,
we want people to contact us with their ideas about how we can use that
to generate electricity, just more broadly than we ever have before."
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