Just about everyone pushing civilization to kick its fossil-fuel habit includes photovoltaics in the list of renewable technologies that will be required to fill the power supply gap. And just about every week one can read about a new breakthrough that promises to make in solar cell technology cheaper and more efficient. But how reliable are those reports? Not very according to one expert.
Solar power is expensive, says the conventional wisdom. Too expensive to be competitive with oil, coal and gas. True in most places, thought not in remote areas far from the grid. I once lived on a houseboat in the Canadian Arctic that relied on one small solar cell array for electricity, for example. But in large cities, I will agree it is much too expensive.
The authors of The Clean Tech Revolution, Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, predict that the price of photovoltaics will continue to fall and such systems will be cost-competitive as soon as 2015. Maybe. And I hope so. I mean, that would be just wonderful. In the lastest issue of Materials Today (Volume 10, Issue 11), however, Gilles Dennler of Konarka Austria GmbH says we should greet claims of breakthroughs with great caution. He is particularly skeptical of organic solar cells:
The very large choice of publishing options offered to authors and the increasing difficulty in gaining impact within the community, combined with a lack of accuracy in measuring, reporting, and reviewing, has seen a significant number of papers claiming unrealistic and scientifically questionable OSC properties and performances. ‘World record’ OSC efficiencies are popping up almost every month, leading the community into an endless and dangerous tendency to outbid the last report. Such phases of disharmony are not unusual in a young scientific field. But it is important to keep them short and not let them create skepticism or mistrust of the field itself.
Although official certificates would seem necessary for claims of world record efficiencies, all actors in the field would agree that there is also a strong need to report device performances without independent verification. The objectivity of this approach relies entirely on basic ethical rules that should lead authors to regularly question their findings and constantly push the accuracy of their measurements to the highest possible level. But responsibility also lies with editors, who should ensure a thorough reviewing process, even if the cost is a slight delay in the publication procedure or a reduced number of papers published. This is especially necessary in the case of world record efficiencies for which the highest level of scientific evaluation is required to avoid falling for the easy attraction of a newsworthy publication. This has not always been the case in the recent past.
The current outbidding phenomenon does a severe disservice to the whole OSC community, damaging its reputation. Solar cells and especially OSCs face enough difficulties in convincing people of their benefit over other energy sources. We should all act together for their success, not against it.
Still, I expect that we will be seeing more and more solar arrays on rooftops in the years ahead. Don’t get discouraged guys. Just keep plugging away….