Solar Power Plastic Konarka Solar
Submitted by les.oke on Sat, 01/31/2009 - 14:42
Konarka Solar Power Plastic just might revolutionize the way we look at solar panels. Imagine every surface that the sun strikes covered with a thin plastic that captures light and turns it into electricity. From charging your cell phone, your electric car or even lighting every office building on Earth, Konarka's solar power plastic might just be what we have been waiting for.
Rick Hess, who runs the newest solar company on the block, Konarka, is justifiably proud of the company's latest creation, Power Plastic, a new lightweight, flexible, and cheap material that converts indoor and outdoor light into electricity.
It looks like camera film and can be easily rolled up and transported if necessary. According to Hess, "Soon you may not even need batteries. We can put this stuff anywhere."
Konarka (which is named after a temple dedicated to a Hindu sun god) is only selling small amounts of Power Plastic presently mainly for outdoor umbrellas and tote bags that will recharge a cellphone whether you're on the go or on the beach.
Of course, solar cells have been used for years to power small devices like calculators and watches, but they were all made of silicon, which makes manufacturing expensive and results in a very fragile product.
Solar Power Plastic works quite differently. The plastic is rolled off of a converted printing press that used to belong to Polaroid. In their secret facilities a secret plastic ink is placed onto rolls of thin film. Incredibly it absorbs light, and the polymer ink emits electrons, which produces electricity.
In a few years, Hess says, "Konarka will have perfected a see through version of power plastic that will be built into the windows of skyscrapers, generating enough power to run whole buildings."
A home solar version is in the works too, that could act like a shingle mount for your home.
Thin-film solar technology like Konarka is a very promising field in renewable energy and much is being done to research this field. Like most thin film solar products, power plastic is not as efficient as silicon solar panels. 6% of the light striking its surface is converted into electricity, while silicon panels is in the 20% range for most products. And present models only last about 5 years compared to well over 30 years for silicon panels.
It's one redeeming feature is that it is so inexpensive compared to silicon panels. It can be replaced at a small fraction of the cost of regular solar panels.
Presently it sells for between $100 and $200 per square yard, which is much cheaper.
We will probably have to wait a few years to see if Konarka Solar Power Plastic can improve these efficiency figures and mount a serious threat to the present solar market, but they are moving in the right direction- cheaper and more resilient. Let's see if Power Plastic can market their invention properly to the buying public.
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