Organic solar cells for large-scale fossil-competitive power production: science fiction? Perhaps no!

摘要

The most widespread expectations for the future role of organic solar cells are probably as an extremely low-cost, easily-replaceable, power-producing medium for a wide variety of portable applications. This picture has come about owing to the present-day relatively low efficiency and stability of organic solar cells compared to their far more mature inorganic counterparts. However, even with the highest-efficiency and most stable inorganic solar cells there are still serious questions as to whether such technology could ever be cost-competitive with fossil-fuelled power generation, except for special niche situations. We have recently proposed that very large parabolic dishes, if used to illuminate inorganic solar cells at solar intensities several hundred times larger than normal, could lead to fossil-competitive solar power generation. The paper will review the technical details and economic projections of such systems and will discuss the conditions under which it might be possible for them to employ organic solar cells.