Working to harness California sunshine

After last week’s heat wave, some may wonder why UCLA has not taken advantage of California’s abundant sunlight with solar energy.

The desperate need for renewable energy is evidenced by unstable oil prices and the environmental effects of global warming already manifesting themselves. Despite this, there are still no solar-powered energy sources on campus.

The major factor preventing the mainstream use of solar energy is its cost, said Igor Bogorad, a third-year biochemistry student and co-founder of the Forum for Energy Economics and Development. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that UCLA has not made any progress in incorporating solar-powered electricity into its campus.

“If you want to get anything done at UCLA, it has got to make financial sense,” Bogorad said, whose UCLA sponsorship of FEED’s biodiesel facility was pulled last summer after gas prices dropped.

“(UCLA is) just really into the numbers,” Bogorad said.

Despite an assured funding of $20,000 from the dean of the School of Engineering for the pilot project, FEED still was not able to find a faculty sponsor for supervision of the project, said Maurice Diesendruck, a third-year economics student who is also a co-founder of FEED.

With oil energy at an average cost of 8 cents per kilowatt hour it is difficult to find incentive to invest in expensive solar panels.

Reducing the cost of solar power is what Yang Yang, the principal investigator at the lab for organic electronic materials and devices at UCLA, is attempting to accomplish with the development of his innovative polymer solar cell.

Traditional solar cells are made out of heavy and expensive silicon. Yang’s organic solar cells are made out of polymer and fullerene.

“A polymer is pretty much a plastic,” said Matt Allen, one of Yang’s graduate students. “And (fullerene) is a form of carbon shaped like a soccer ball.”

Polymer solar cells also differ from traditional solar cells in their structure.

All solar cells need two materials to convert a photon, the basic unit of light, into two charges. When a photon lands near these two materials, the photon is split into a positive and a negative charge. The two materials separate the charges and allow them to flow in opposite directions toward the electrodes as they generate electricity.

“In traditional solar cells, the two materials are sandwiched one on top of the other,” Allen said.

In Yang’s solar cells, polymer and fullerene are mixed together, increasing the overall volume in which photons can be split and efficiently converting more than 5 percent of solar energy.

Another appealing characteristic of these polymer solar cells is their transparency. Making these solar panels see-through will add an aesthetic appeal to the product, said Dina Lozofsky, vice president of strategic asset management at Solarmer Energy, Inc.

Solarmer Energy, an emerging company from El Monte, has partnered with Yang to transform his product from a research prototype to an actual consumer product.

“Colored see-through solar cells would work … on tinted windows,” Lozofsky said. “If windows have to be tinted anyway, why not coat them with a polymer solar cell solution? They’ll still let light through. They’ll still block UV light. But at the same time, they’ll also produce electricity.”

Solarmer Energy markets these solar cells for portable gadgets. While other solar cells have to be attached permanently in large numbers, polymer solar cells are mobile.

Their flexibility and lightness allows them to become a supplemental energy source for batteries on mobile devices.

“We are not trying to power a home,” Lozofsky said. “We are trying to power a (portable) device.”

“We are talking to cell phone manufacturing companies about incorporating polymer solar cells,” Lozofsky said.

Because of the inexpensive materials they are produced with, adding these solar cells will not raise the price of the device. “If this technology was going to make cell phones … much more expensive, then there’s no reason to have them” Lozofsky said.

Despite all their advantages, polymer solar cells still have some drawbacks. Their efficiency is now only about a quarter of that for conventional solar cells.

Allen said that improving power conversion efficiency is one of the main research goals in the Yang lab. Another drawback is their low durability, which has led to the development of protective coatings.

Solarmer Energy is planning on launching its first line of products by 2010, Lozofsky said. With the mainstream application of less expensive solar cells, the solar cell price per production should go down.

Diesendruck said he sees a parallel between the decreasing price of solar energy and materials for computers during the dot-com boom.

“Solar energy is a great resource for … California,” Diesendruck said, because of California’s sunny climate.

“Every day, the earth is hit with (120 trillion kilowatts) of energy,” Allen said. “Solar energy makes other forms of energy look measly.”

According to Allen, the entire world consumes a fraction of that, about 16 trillion kilowatts.

“I honestly do not know what is going to happen,” Bogorad said. “We need a major breakthrough, and hopefully Dr. Yang and other scientists like him can figure something out.”

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