Solar Advances using Plastic

Still in the lab, but promising to improve efficiency from 3.4%to 5.1% for plastic solar cells. This would be close to what is possible with amorphous silicon. My post Solar Market in 2009 and Good Overview from EE Times for efficiencies. The challenge is the solar cells are only part of the cost, installation and the cabinet need to be included in the total cost. And if the efficiency is only 1/4th of Bulk-silicon solar cells, then 4X the amount of cabinets and space are needed to produce the same amount of power. The advantage of plastic is now you don't need to worry about any silicon shortage. Of course since it's plastic, there is the cost of oil that is used to produce the plastic.