"The environmental testing by ECN further confirms Konarka's findings," commented Rick Hess, president and CEO at Konarka.

"We have been operating PV cells with similar architectures on a roof in Boston, Mass. for more than a year with little or no degradation. Further, contrary to the majority of the research community, claiming that organic solar cells require packaging with either glass or very expensive 'super barriers,' we are proud to have demonstrated outstanding high lifetime for flexible cells packaged with commercially available, low cost materials."

Testing conditions were derived in accordance with the most relevant tests from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Engineering Consortium (IEC), and involved high temperature storage in the dark at 65 degreesC, climate chamber test at 65 degreesC combined with 85% relative humidity and illumination under a solar simulator (one sun at 65 degreesC).

The lifetime parameter is defined as greater than 80% of the samples being above 80% of initial performance.

Cells surpassed the lifetime requirement after 1,000 hours of testing under a solar simulator (one sun at 65 degreesC), as well as high temperature storage in the dark at 65 degreesC. Cells also exceeded lifetime of 500 hours for the climate chamber test at 65 degreesC, combined with 85% relative humidity.

All solar cells used commercially available, low cost packaging materials with a water permeation rate in the order of 0.1 g/m2/day and were on flexible substrates.

Related Links
Energy Research centre of the Netherlands (ECN)
All About Solar Energy at SolarDaily.com

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