UK universities receive £1.5 million to reduce cost of solar power

MANCHESTER, UK, March 7, 2007. A UK funding agency for university research has awarded £1.5 million to develop new and potentially cheaper ways of generating solar power.

A consortium of researchers, led by Paul O'Brien from the University of Manchester and Jenny Nelson from Imperial College London, will investigate new designs that use intrinsically inexpensive materials and cheap fabrication methodologies. The 3.5 year project is funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to investigate novel solar cell designs in an attempt to produce a more efficient system for generating green power.

The research will build demonstration hybrid solar cells that have the long-term potential to be mass-produced and to achieve an energy conversion efficiency approaching 10%. The cells will be made both from organic polymeric carbon-based materials and small particles of inorganic semiconductors.

Most designs will draw on nanotechnology and researchers plan to use PbS nanorods (small cylinders of lead sulphide that are around 100 times smaller than a human hair). They will also use semiconductor quantum dots (extremely small particles measuring one ten-millionth of an inch) to absorb light.

“Alternatives to fossil fuel-based electricity sources are needed urgently, to reduce the environmental impact of electrical power generation and to secure our supply of electricity in the future,” explains O'Brien. “The widespread implementation of solar electricity requires a significant reduction in cost and a successful outcome to this project has the potential to provide a step-change solar cell technology.”

“A major reduction in the cost of solar power through the use of low-cost materials could seriously accelerate the take-up of renewable energy technology and make it much more accessible to the developing world,” adds Nelson.

The project will employ four postdoctoral research associates and two doctoral students across the two universities. By spreading the work across departments of chemistry, electrical engineering, physics and materials, the consortium will investigate areas such as materials synthesis and characterisation, device fabrication and system integration.

The project, ‘High-efficiency Hybrid Solar Cells for Micro-generation,’ will start in April and conclude in October 2010.

“Widespread implementation of photovoltaic electricity to meet changing energy demands requires a step-change in the cost of photovoltaic power,” the abstract explains. “This proposal assembles a consortium of chemists, physicists, materials scientists and electrical engineers from the University of Manchester and Imperial College London to address this need through the development of new low-cost, high-efficiency, demonstration solar cells for micro-generation.”

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