I sure hope we make progress. A plastic cell would be awesome, I mean think of it, a solar cell that is flexible and shapable into pretty much anything you need. Think of the uses, the back of your laptop is a power plant, when you are not using it, the sunlight or office light from your desk is helping charge up the battery again. On a boat, something that can be encapsulated into a polymer or clear coated, shaped to the boat, walked on, and NOT break, yet, keep the power up for your batteries, radios etc. For emergency power, something that 'truly' can be rolled or folded up, and back out again w/o damage. A power plant that has thousands of yards of plastic sheet solar panels producing power, hurricane on the way, no problem, just roll them up and store them until the storm passes..

I can wait 5 years and when it does finally happen, Ill be proud to say, I helped make this possible. Id also like a sample of your first prototype to test out too :D

Hey, it can't hurt to ask heh.

Aaron

Dear Aaron,
you are absolutely correct - the potential of plastic solar cells is quite exciting. The flexibility and versatility you mentioned can really make this a game changer technology. There is actually even research into sprayable/paintable solar cell polymers. The other important aspect is the cost - if there is one thing chemists know how to do it's how to cheaply mass produce plastics. And the expensive production of silicon-based cells has so far been the Achilles' heel of photovoltaic energy production.
But again, it's important to remind everyone that there are still hard problem to overcome (otherwise we would already have plastic cells everywhere) - but scientists love tough challenges.

Best wishes from

Your Harvard CEP team

P.S. There are a couple of small companies like Konarka or Solarmer who already sell plastic solar cells (not very efficient ones yet) for toy applications. You should check out their webpage!
http://www.konarka.com/
http://www.solarmer.com/

Has anyone looked into possibly a polarization surface on the panels. Fringe afffect, when it's a cloudy day, when the sun comes out from behind a cloud, that few moments it happens, the amps surge a TON on my array. What is happening to the light to cause that surge? It's not brighter than full uncloudy sunlight, and no the panels are not that much cooler that temp derating is causing it to look that way to that extreme extent? Possibly if plastics could help 're create' that effect it might help them be more efficient?

sorry just rambling here, you are the experts, im just an obsessive AE hobbyist. I like to always run a bunch of 'what if's through my head. it keeps me sane... or does it? :D

Aaron

If you are approved by TeraGrid, is that the 'next step' thing for all the computations we have been doing, or is it going to replace what you have been doing here in your latter phases? Unless I missed something, it doesn't appear that TeraGrid is a DC type project much.

Im just curious what our role will be once you get to that point.

Thank you
Aaron

Thanks for the update and the encouragement: I look forward to seeing the concrete results of our labours...