The point of departure for the MEGAWATT project is the research results already obtained by the DTU Solar Energy team. The aim is to demonstrate that energy production at a cost of 0.25 Kr./0.03 € per kWh is now possible with polymer solar technology (also referred to as Organic Photovoltaics (OPV)).
The main reasons why this solar energy production technology is attractive include:
- Low production costs
- Low environmental impact
- Fast production, installation and replacement/de-installation
- Shorter energy payback time than any other existing solar technology
One reason for the low production costs for polymer (=plastic) solar cells is that production process requires
relatively little energy compared to other solar technologies and another reason is that they contain inexpensive materials and no critical raw materials are involved in the production.
Polymer solar cells are produced by the same roll-to-roll (R2R) technology used for e.g. newspaper printing, which makes the manufacturing process very fast. Also, the automated installation and de-installation process means that polymer solar cells can be installed at exceptionally fast rates.
The energy payback time (the time it takes to produce the same amount of energy that was used for the production of the solar cells) is short, <1 year for a complete kW-scaled polymer solar power plant. This makes OPV an attractive electricity production technology, even if the efficiency of the solar cells is still low compared to other types of solar cells.
A central aim of the MEGAWATT project is to increase the production capacity of DTU’s present 1000 m2 OPV solar foil park by a factor 3-4 through improvements throughout the entire lifecycle from process development, to large-scale manufacture of solar cell foils, and installation, maintenance, operation and de-installation. Another aim is to specify the inventory for OPV power plants with 1 MW – 1 GW capacity.
During this project the capacity of DTU’s present 1000m2 OPV solar park will be increased with a facto 3 to 4, and the inventory for OPV power plants with 1 MW – 1 GW capacity will be specified.
The produced energy and the environmental impact of the entire OPV power plant from cradle to grave will be analysed. The most efficient method of transferring the energy to the grid will be investigated and will enter into a detailed cost analysis. In addition to the required scale of the system, the cost analysis will also include the dependence of the revenue on the use. This project will thus bring us a significant step closer towards seeing our research used in large scale electricity production.