The first commercial solar panels were produced by Bell Labs in 1954. Like ~95% of commercial solar panels today, the first panels were made from silicon. At the time they had only a 6% efficiency and were exorbitantly expensive, making them impractical for most applications. Despite their costs and performance, silicon solar cells were seen as a promising technology in niche applications, such as being used to powering satellites and space probes. Over the next several decades, researchers continued to work on improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of solar panels, leading to the widespread adoption of solar energy for a variety of applications.

Today, solar technology is part of a fast growing, muti-billion-dollar industry. However, commercial silicon panels are limited to large-scale electricity generation (i.e., rooftop solar, solar generation farms) as they are heavy, rigid, too fragile to be used in non-stationary power generation applications. To branch into new markets, such as powering every-day portable electronics, solar technologies will need to be affordable, lightweight, flexible, and durability.

Emerging solar technologies made of organic compounds, called OSCs, are able overcome these limitations of silicon-based solar cells. While OSCs have yet to achieve significant market penetration compared to traditional solar panels, over the past several decades there has been significant research and development breakthroughs in the efficiency, durability, and cost-effectiveness of OSCs. For example, recent research in material science have led to the development of high-performance OSCs with power conversion efficiencies exceeding 17%, rivaling the efficiency of some commercially available silicon-based solar cells. OSCs are also lightweight and flexible, making them compatible with wearable electronics or portable devices.

At Power Bloom Solar, we see that the technologies of the future are here today. We aim to be pioneers in accelerating the development and production of OSC technologies, making clean energy viable for currently underserved markets.

More Reading

• https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33947.pdf - the history of silicon solar cells
• https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Photovoltaics-Report.pdf - markets in the solar cell industry
• https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02071 - a short review on the developments in OSC research.