Bendable Organic Solar Panels

The cost-to-power ratio of solar energy is not very good. In fact, compared to old-fashion fossil fuel energy, it’s even pretty expensive.

This might change with the introduction of the Organic Solar Cell. The solar cell will be made of pentacene, a material that is much cheaper to produce than today’s silicon panels.

To be successful, the new solar panels have to be efficient. In this case, efficiency is measured by how much solar energy is actually turned into electricity. Right now, the organic cells have a low efficiency of 3.4% versus 15% for ordinary solar cells.

If it is cheap to produce, this new type of solar panel could make its way into applications that don’t require too much power… like gadgets.

[livescience] | [gatech] – Thanks to Anders Beer for the tip.