Mcast senior lecturer Brian Azzopardi gave a lecture entitled ‘Organic solar cells electricity: Will it be the preferred low-cost form of solar electricity?’ at the MatHero PhD School in Germany’s Black Forest region.
It dealt with a series of newly developed engineering economics and optimisation techniques to determine cost boundaries and support decision- making and policy adaptation for emerging photovoltaic technologies.
MatHero has received €3.5 million worth of funding from European Commission and is focusing on environmentally compatible production methods for organic solar cells from novel materials.
The new project, coordinated by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), aims at making organic PVs competitive compared to inorganic ones by enhancing the efficiency of organic solar cells, reducing their production costs and increasing their lifetime. ‘Green’ processes for materials synthesis and coating play a key role. KIT is one of the largest and most prestigious research and education institutions in Germany known for its high-quality of research work.