Printable solar panels from new polymer-based technology may one day allow consumers to practically print their own energy. That’s almost like being able to print your own money!

Especially in the field of solar power, where the up-front cost has almost always been prohibitive, it would be an about-face.

Since solar power was introduced, cost has always been a factor. One of the primary costs of the production of solar panels is the semiconductor material, silicon. Silicon is expensive and, there have been no viable alternatives, so photovoltaic research has focused on increasing efficiency of the use of silicon. Now this new print- or paint-on technology is allowing researchers and companies to explore a completely different avenue to make solar power more cost-effective – by lowering its production cost.

This new printable, paintable semiconductor is made of carbon nanotubes that are encapsulated in fullerenes and act in much the same way insulated copper wire acts, but are five thousand times thinner than a human hair. These nanotubes are then printed or painted onto a special polymer film or sheet. As a result we have instant (or almost instant) printable solar panel!

The possibilities of this are exciting and potentially far-reaching. Imagine printing a page to power your printer. And imagine painting a wall or a roof in a village in a third-world country to power computers for their school. And imagine how much different the aftermath of hurricane Katrina could have been.

At least one company, Nanosolar, is done imagining and has started doing it. They are printing semiconductors onto aluminum foil like newsprint onto newspaper. Granted, Nanosolar can’t just cut you off a poster-size square, but they have dropped the initial cost of photovoltaic technology by at least two-thirds for industrial-size applications. Nanosolar’s first application will be for a solar power plant in Germany.

Siemens is also developing similar printable solar panel technology using a polymer-based sheet or film as mentioned at the beginning of this article, compared to Nanosolar’s aluminum foil printing surface. And since Nanosolar is a privately held company, its technology is being deliberately held close to the vest. While we can’t compare the technologies apples-to-apples, we can assume that carbon nanotube ink is the development that has made these developments possible.

So it’s really not too far-fetched to imagine only having to buy special ink and paper for your printer one day; but the back-to-reality good part is that this nano-technology may drop the cost of solar panels and therefore reduce cost of solar energy to within a stone’s throw of coal energy. Can't wait to see the printable solar panels!