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Solar Cells for Cheap – Gratzel Solar Cells are Coming

Not everyone gets a solar cell named after them: but Michael Gratzel did. He says his novel technology, which promises electricity-generating windows and low manufacturing costs, is ready for the market.

Michael Grätzel, chemistry professor at the Ecoles Polytechniques Fédérales de Lausanne in Switzerland, is most famous for inventing a new type of solar cell that could cost much less than conventional photovoltaics. Now, 15 years after the first prototypes, what he calls the dye-sensitized cell (and everyone else calls the Grätzel cell) is in limited production by Konarka, a company based in Lowell, MA, and will soon be more widely available.

Grätzel is now working on taking advantage of the ability of nanocrystals to dramatically increase the efficiency of solar cells.

Technology Review asked him about the challenges to making cheap solar cells, and why new technologies like his, which take much less energy to manufacture than conventional solar cells, are so important.

By Kevin Bullis

Full Story: http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17490&ch=biztech

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