Early on in the field of printed electronics , many researchers, businesses and investors alike thought that organic photovoltaics (OPV) would be the first application to break into the mainstream. The idea was a good one – printing low-cost solar roll-to-roll would be cost efficient and could be used for generating power for buildings, vehicles and much more.

For a variety of reasons, the first wave of OPV did not work out. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured in, but essentially, useful efficiencies could not be reached on a production scale. After a wave of highly-publicized bankruptcies and asset sales, only a handful of companies remained.

The good news is that these remaining companies have strong technology, and more importantly, excellent leadership. They are working on different areas and going at their own respective paces. In their own ways, they have brought the technology far forward compared to a decade before. With the growth in interest in sustainability, OPV has an even better story to tell.

The State of OPV

The first thing to consider is the state of OPV is right now. Heliatek GmbH was one of the initial OPV companies from a decade ago, and continues developing the technology.

Stephan Kube, head of marketing for Heliatek GmbH, noted that organic PV is basically the result of long R&D work around organic electronics, coming from universities and other research institutes.

“The researchers have been looking for new materials with electronic specifications to replace conventional materials, and found out that certain carbon-based molecules have that function,” Kube said. “So, this was the basis for several new products based on organic electronics.”

Kube observed that one of the most successful applications are OLED , or organic LEDs, which are also based on organic electronics.

“OLED turns electricity into light and so the researches also thought, why not turning the concept around and turning light into electricity,” Kube continued. “This is how solar works, so the idea about making a new solar technology was born.”

ASCA has been involved in the OPV market for more than a decade, and added OPVIUS in 2019. Hermann Issa, SVP business development and project management at ASCA, observed that the dawn of organic photovoltaics (OPV) is strongly linked to the development of OLED. 

“In the 1990s, people started intensified research on OLED for displays. Early on people used the same materials to also try for solar, as the mechanism is just vice-versa: OLED: current in – light out versus OPV: light in – current out,” said issa. 

“In the late 1990, the first ‘relevant’ devices were made in the labs with >1% efficiency. Then different companies developed the technology until it became ready for commercialization. The German player OPVIUS specialized in free-form OPV solutions and the OPV activity of the French industrial player ARMOR, merged in 2019 to become the global leader in OPV, now called ASCA,” Issa added.

Epishine is a relative newcomer to the OPV field, and has its eye on indoor applications such as electronic shelf labels among others. Emma Woxlin, co-founder of Epishine, reported that the research covering OPV were from the beginning starting because of the interest to use it for solar.

“The vision of enabling solar that wasn’t dependent of scarce and expensive raw materials, but just abundant low-cost organic materials, is what is driving most of the development within OPV,” added Woxlin.

Efficiencies in OPV Solar Cells

As mentioned before, the earlier OPV companies couldn’t significantly raise the efficiencies of their products, and their technologies fell by the wayside.

Issa said that efficiency has grown thanks to the progress made by chemical companies in the development of semiconductors material and by the R&D department of the key players of the OPV market.

“However, OPV should not be presented, analyzed and compared by its efficiency when we speak about solar technologies,” added Issa. “OPV creates a new era for solar technologies and offers what was not possible before: it merges design and energy, it offers the possibility to produce energy where it is needed, and it gives the possibility to integrate solar energy where it was not possible before.”

Kube said that developing higher efficiencies is a step-by-step process, because there is no “magic” to bring it up quickly.

“It’s many elements that need to be right to get to stable higher efficiencies,” Kube observed. “Mostly it’s about new materials. There are lab results of I think 17% efficiency from China, but only on a usually small 1cm x 1cm cell. We have also been chasing these lab records for years and even had a world record some years ago.

“But our view has changed,” Kube added. “We do not focus on lab efficiencies. What matters to us is efficiency in a real product, that you are able to produce at scale. This is our way and that is the reason we have built as mass production site here in Dresden with a nameplate capacity of 1 million square meters. From this, we are close to get solar films with 8% efficiency at a reasonable price point for a new technology and certified lifetime. This is unique in the industry and different to other OPV solutions.”