Zagres Limited – Study, assessment and proof of market potentials and economics of a low-cost solar cell technology

成本和效率仍然是广泛采用太阳能的主要障碍，目前全球太阳能的价值为510亿英镑，到2020年复合年增长率为18.7%。商业上可用的太阳能电池，主要是硅基的，成本为0.70英镑/瓦，效率在10 - 15%之间，分别远离0.05英镑/瓦和30%的行业目标。替代太阳能电池技术最近已开发出基于新材料的，如染料敏化太阳能电池（DSC），通过利用廉价材料和低成本制造工艺，与硅基电池相比，染料敏化太阳能电池（DSC）有望大幅降低成本，降低倍数为10倍，同时实现相当或更高的效率。DSC器件有着广泛的应用前景，例如消费电子产品和透明玻璃窗发电。然而，现有的商业DSC价格昂贵，因此应用非常有限，例如用于iPad的Logitech键盘。Zagres从剑桥大学高级光子学与电子学中心（CAPE）分离出来，已经开发了一种独特的正在申请专利的纳米结构TiO 2 DSC原子层沉积（ALD）技术，该技术将钛材料的使用减少了300倍，并导致了18.2%的创纪录效率，比替代DSC高4.2%。与广泛使用的硅基太阳能电池相比，通过我们的ALD-DSC技术减少钛的使用，以及低成本的材料合成和器件制造工艺可以使成本降低70%，从而使更多的应用变得经济可行，例如从玻璃窗发电;因此，它的开发可以有助于实现更便宜的太阳能，同时保持可持续性和材料安全。该项目的目的是研究、评估和量化具有潜在破坏性的ALD-DSC技术在低成本大批量应用中的经济性和市场潜力。

Cost and efficiency are yet the main barriers to widespread adoption of solar energy, currentlyvalued at £51 billion globally with a compound annual growth rate of 18.7% through to 2020.Commercially available solar cells, which are mostly Silicon-based, cost 0.70 £/Watt and haveefficiencies between 10 to 15%, far from industry's targets of 0.05 £/Watt and 30%,respectively. Alternative solar cell technologies have recently been developed based on newmaterials, such as Dye-sensitized Solar Cells (DSCs) which promise substantial costreduction, by a factor of x10 as compared to Si-based cells through utilising inexpensivematerials and low-cost manufacturing processes, whilst achieving comparable or improvedefficiencies. DSC devices promise a variety of applications, such as consumer electronics andelectricity generation from transparent glass windows. However, existing commercial DSCsare yet expensive, hence have found very limited applications, e.g. Logitech keyboard foriPad.Zagres, spun out from Cambridge University's Centre for Advanced Photonics & Electronics(CAPE), has developed a unique and patent-pending Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)technology for Nanostructured TiO2 DSCs, which reduces Titanium material use by 300times and has led to a record efficiency of 18.2%, 4.2% higher than alternative DSCs. Thereduction of Titanium use, enabled by our ALD-DSC technology, and the low-cost materialssynthesis and device fabrication processes can lead to a substantial 70% cost reduction whencompared to widely available Silicon-based solar cells, enabling far greater applications tobecome economically viable, e.g. electricity generation from glass windows; its exploitationcan hence contribute to enabling cheaper solar energy whilst maintaining sustainability &material security. The aim of this project is to study, assess and quantify the economics andmarket potentials of the potentially disruptive ALD-DSC technology for low-cost high-volumeapplications.