Grist has an article on the progress of plastic solar cells - Fantastic solar plastic breakthrough.

One of the holy grails of solar power has been to create very thin plastic solar cells that could be attached to just about anything to generate electricity -- windows, awnings, bus shelters.

You can find very low-powered flexible panels embedded in backpacks and small solar chargers, but the challenge has been to increase the efficiency of such photovoltaic cells. Now a company that has spent years developing an organic solar technology, Konarka of Lowell, Mass., says its "Power Plastic" has set a new record, achieving a 8.3 percent efficiency rate in converting sunlight into electricity. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory certified the efficiency rating.

"This unsurpassed NREL certification opens new doors for the commercial production of cost-effective, efficient electricity for numerous large scale applications," Howard Berke, Konarka's chief executive, said in a statement.

Now, 8.3 percent is less than half the efficiency of a conventional crystalline silicon photovoltaic panel like those found on residential rooftops. But it's a notable achievement for a solar cell that uses organic molecules to generate electricity. The great promise of organic molecules is that they can be produced at far less cost than standard silicon solar panels, but the low efficiency of organic photovoltaics has limited their use. ...

A couple of years ago, a Konarka executive showed me just how portable and easily installed photovoltaic plastic can be. He pulled a roll of solar modules out of a briefcase and unfurled them on a table. Within a few minutes they were powering a lamp.

If you happen to be in San Francisco, you can spot Power Plastic modules at bus stops. The modules are embedded in the wave-shaped red roofs of the bus shelter and power its lights, as well as Wifi routers for web-surfing passengers.

The city plans to solarize 300 bus stops, which would generate 43,000 kilowatt-hours a year.

Now that's fantastic plastic.

Technology Review has an article on plastic solar cells with "near-perfect internal efficiency" - Pushing Plastic Solar Cells.

Plastic solar cells are lightweight, flexible, and, most important, cheap to make. But so far, these devices have been too inefficient to compete with silicon solar cells for most applications. Now researchers from a few institutions claim to have made polymer solar cells with record-breaking efficiencies. These cells still aren't good enough to compete with silicon, but polymer efficiencies have been increasing at a rate of about 1 percent a year. If they can keep this up, say researchers, plastic solar cells will be competing with silicon within a few years.

This week, in the online edition of Nature Photonics, researchers reported on polymer solar cells that convert about 6.1 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity--inching a bit closer to the 10 percent that they say will be needed to gain a significant foothold in the market. (Conventional silicon cells are about 15 percent efficient.) The new efficiency numbers "show that we're in the game," says Alan Heeger, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who led the research. Heeger shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 for his role in the development of the first conducting polymers, and he's cofounder and chief scientist at Konarka, a plastic solar cell company headquartered in Lowell, MA.

The California researchers' results compare very favorably with previous published descriptions of polymer solar cells, whose efficiency has hovered around 5 percent. Konarka says that the company's cells, which use different materials than the cells made in Heeger's university lab, have recently been rated at about 6.4 percent. And a competitor in San Mateo, CA, called Solarmer Energy has made plastic cells with similar efficiencies, according to an affiliated researcher.

Plastic solar cells, no matter how well designed, have intrinsic limits dictated by the polymers that make up their active layer. The polymers made so far can only absorb relatively narrow bands of light. It's possible to boost their power-conversion efficiency by stacking films of polymers designed to pick up different bands of light; Heeger's group has, in fact, had some success with this in the past. But this approach has a major disadvantage. "Layering is self-defeating because you increase the fabrication costs," says Luping Yu, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Chicago, who is also working on solar cells.

Technology Review has an article on the opening of Konarka's organic polymer solar cell factory - Mass Production of Plastic Solar Cells.

In a significant milestone in the deployment of flexible, printed photovoltaics, Konarka, a solar-cell startup based in Lowell, MA, has opened a commercial-scale factory, with the capacity to produce enough organic solar cells every year to generate one gigawatt of electricity, the equivalent of a large nuclear reactor.

Organic solar cells could cut the cost of solar power by making use of inexpensive organic polymers rather than the expensive crystalline silicon used in most solar cells. What's more, the polymers can be processed using low-cost equipment such as ink-jet printers or coating equipment employed to make photographic film, which reduces both capital and manufacturing costs compared with conventional solar-cell manufacturing.

The company has produced its cells in a relatively small pilot plant with the capacity of creating about one megawatt of solar cells a year. The large gigawatt capacity of the plant was made possible by the fact that Konarka does not require specialized equipment to make its solar cells. Indeed, the factory and equipment were formerly owned by Polaroid and used to make film for medical imaging. With minor modifications, the same equipment can now be used to make solar cells. Richard Hess, Konarka's president and CEO, says that the company's ability to use existing equipment allows it to scale up production at one-tenth the cost compared with conventional technologies.

Unlike conventional solar cells, which are packaged in modules made of glass and aluminum and are rigid and heavy, Konarka's solar cells are lightweight and flexible. This makes them attractive for portable applications. What's more, they can be designed in a range of colors, which can make them easier to incorporate attractively into certain applications. One of the first products to use Konarka's cells will be briefcases that can recharge laptops. Another company is testing Konarka's solar cells for use in umbrellas for outdoor tables at restaurants. They could also be used in tents and awnings.

Renewable Energy World reports that thin film solar manufacturing capacity continues to grow, with Konarka opening a new plant in Massachusetts - Konarka Opens 1 GW Solar Thin-film Manufacturing Facility.

Konarka Technologies, Inc. announced that it has opened a roll-to-roll flexible thin film solar manufacturing facility with a production capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW). The company said that the facility is part of its plan to prepare for the commercialization and mass production of its patent-protected thin film solar material, Power Plastic.

“This facility has state-of-the-art printing capabilities that are ready for full operation, with the future potential to produce over a gigawatt of flexible plastic solar modules per year,” said Howard Berke, executive chairman and co-founder of Konarka. “Our technical leadership and innovation in flexible thin film solar, along with this facility’s capabilities of producing in excess of 10 million square meters of material per year, will allow us to produce Power Plastic for indoor, portable, outdoor and building integrated applications.”

Located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the 250,000 square foot building was previously the location for Polaroid Corporation’s printing technologies. With this U.S. based manufacturing location, Konarka further expands its presence in Massachusetts and accelerates its plans to develop and commercialize its polymer-based organic photovoltaic (OPV) technologies worldwide.

In addition to acquiring the fully automated roll-to-roll manufacturing line from Polaroid, the company has also hired the leading technology and process engineering teams from Polaroid, with plans to hire mroe than 100 additional employees as production increases toward capacity over the next two to three years.

Wired has an article on Konarka's organic solar cells, manufactured using ink jet printing. Hopefully this stuff appears on the market in the not-too-distant future.

Yesterday, Konarka announced that they have demonstrated organic (made of carbon/plastic/oil based products versus silicon/inorganic products) solar cells that can be manufactured using highly efficient ink-jet printing. These solar cells do not require the clean room processes that silicon cells do and could make it easier to incorporate solar power into many useful applications.

Sounds like a green victory, but CNET reported that the organic cells are so lightweight and flexible Konarka suggested "putting its plastic on soft drink bottles in stores for advertising." While I appreciate that Konarka needs to generate a lot of "market" to turn a profit for the considerable amount invested in them, I don't think that adding plastic solar cells and screens on the outside of disposable soft drink bottle is consistent with the sustainable promise of the company and their technology.

Creating solar power collecting windows on the other hand (a previously announced Konarka product plan), now that sounds like a good idea...

Although only 5% efficient now compared to the 15-20% efficiency of traditional silicon solar cells, organic solar cells are more flexible and easier to print in colors, transparent or even in camouflage. Konarka is already developing portable, electricity generating buildings for the military.

Although not commercially available yet, Konarka is at work with a number of commercial partners and likely to be available later this year.