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Flexible super-thin solar film

Imagine that the sun is baking hot and you let down the blinds to get some shade.  At the same moment, you begin to produce electricity from solar cells on the outside of the blinds. This is not science fiction. This product may be available as soon as 2010.

The conventional wafer-based solar panels are now in competition with super-thin flexible solar cells, in which a film of copper, indium, selenium and gallium is applied onto a foil, so that the solar cells can be bent, rolled up and applied to uneven surfaces.

This is a very promising form of solar-cell technology which can help reduce costs dramatically – and thereby increase the competitiveness of solar energy. Hydro Building Systems is among the companies developing this technology through its ownership in Ascent Solar. Even though the window blinds are the first product to emerge from this collaboration, it is thin film integrated into more solid parts of buildings that will have the greatest potential. The vision of the future is solar cells so thin and flexible that they can be applied with a paintbrush. 

Read More:
http://www.hydro.com/no/Pressesenter/Nyheter/Arkiv/2007/Mars/15693/
http://www.nanosolar.com
http://www.sunfilm.com