Solar cells with one-day energy payback for the factories of the future

Nieves Espinosa Martinez; Markus Hösel; Dechan Angmo; Frederik C Krebs

doi:10.1039/c1ee02728j

Solar cells with one-day energy payback for the factories of the future

Nieves Espinosa Martinez
, Markus Hösel
, Dechan Angmo
, Frederik C Krebs

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

Scalability is a requirement before any new energy source can be expected to house a possible solution to the challenge that mankind’s increasing energy demand presents. No renewable energy source is as abundant as the Sun and yet efficient and low-cost conversion of solar energy still has not been developed. We approach the challenge by firstly taking a technology that efficiently addresses the need for daily production of 1 GWp on a global level, which does not employ elements with critically low abundance and has a low thermal budget.Wethen applied life cycle assessment methodologies to direct research and developed such technology in the form of a polymer solar cell that presents a significant improvement in energy payback time (EPBT) and found that very short energy payback times on the order of one day are possible, thus potentially presenting a solution to the current energy gap of >14 TW by year 2050.

Original language	English
Journal	Energy & Environmental Science
Volume	5
Issue number	1
Pages (from-to)	5117-5132
ISSN	1754-5692
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1039/c1ee02728j
Publication status	Published - 2012

Bibliographical note

This work has been supported by the Danish Strategic Research
Council (2104-07-0022) and EUDP (j.no. 64009-0050); also by
the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Consolider-
HOPE CSD2007-00007), and by Comunidad Autonoma de la
Region de Murcia (CARM-D429-2008). Partial financial
support was also received from the European Commission as
part of the Framework 7 ICT 2009 collaborative project
HIFLEX (grant no. 248678) from the EUIndian framework of
the ‘‘Largecells’’ project that received funding from the European
Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–
2013. grant no. 261936) and from PVERA-NET (project
acronym POLYSTAR).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

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Largecells : Large-area Organic and Hybrid Solar Cells
Krebs, F. C. (Project Participant) & Søndergaard, R. R. (Project Participant)
01/09/2010 → 31/08/2014
Project: Research
Polymer Solar Cells for Solar Energy Conversion
Krebs, F. C. (Project Manager)
01/01/2008 → 31/12/2013
Project: Research

Cite this

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title = "Solar cells with one-day energy payback for the factories of the future",

abstract = "Scalability is a requirement before any new energy source can be expected to house a possible solution to the challenge that mankind{\textquoteright}s increasing energy demand presents. No renewable energy source is as abundant as the Sun and yet efficient and low-cost conversion of solar energy still has not been developed. We approach the challenge by firstly taking a technology that efficiently addresses the need for daily production of 1 GWp on a global level, which does not employ elements with critically low abundance and has a low thermal budget.Wethen applied life cycle assessment methodologies to direct research and developed such technology in the form of a polymer solar cell that presents a significant improvement in energy payback time (EPBT) and found that very short energy payback times on the order of one day are possible, thus potentially presenting a solution to the current energy gap of >14 TW by year 2050.",

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AU - Espinosa Martinez, Nieves

AU - Hösel, Markus

AU - Angmo, Dechan

AU - Krebs, Frederik C

N1 - This work has been supported by the Danish Strategic Research Council (2104-07-0022) and EUDP (j.no. 64009-0050); also by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Consolider- HOPE CSD2007-00007), and by Comunidad Autonoma de la Region de Murcia (CARM-D429-2008). Partial financial support was also received from the European Commission as part of the Framework 7 ICT 2009 collaborative project HIFLEX (grant no. 248678) from the EUIndian framework of the ‘‘Largecells’’ project that received funding from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007– 2013. grant no. 261936) and from PVERA-NET (project acronym POLYSTAR).

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N2 - Scalability is a requirement before any new energy source can be expected to house a possible solution to the challenge that mankind’s increasing energy demand presents. No renewable energy source is as abundant as the Sun and yet efficient and low-cost conversion of solar energy still has not been developed. We approach the challenge by firstly taking a technology that efficiently addresses the need for daily production of 1 GWp on a global level, which does not employ elements with critically low abundance and has a low thermal budget.Wethen applied life cycle assessment methodologies to direct research and developed such technology in the form of a polymer solar cell that presents a significant improvement in energy payback time (EPBT) and found that very short energy payback times on the order of one day are possible, thus potentially presenting a solution to the current energy gap of >14 TW by year 2050.

AB - Scalability is a requirement before any new energy source can be expected to house a possible solution to the challenge that mankind’s increasing energy demand presents. No renewable energy source is as abundant as the Sun and yet efficient and low-cost conversion of solar energy still has not been developed. We approach the challenge by firstly taking a technology that efficiently addresses the need for daily production of 1 GWp on a global level, which does not employ elements with critically low abundance and has a low thermal budget.Wethen applied life cycle assessment methodologies to direct research and developed such technology in the form of a polymer solar cell that presents a significant improvement in energy payback time (EPBT) and found that very short energy payback times on the order of one day are possible, thus potentially presenting a solution to the current energy gap of >14 TW by year 2050.

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Solar cells with one-day energy payback for the factories of the future

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

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Projects

Largecells : Large-area Organic and Hybrid Solar Cells

Polymer Solar Cells for Solar Energy Conversion

Cite this