Flexible solar panels
Evolution and market adoption
Flexible solar panels offer incredible opportunities for product designers and innovators to create self-powered personal devices. Printed solar panels can be used to generate the low power required by personal IoT devices. At larger sizes, they can be used as panels for agricultural applications like greenhouse farming, where glass greenhouses are unable to support the weight of traditional solar panels.
While traditional rigid solar panels produced in China dominate the domestic market due to their low cost, the niche for flexible, printed solar panels is growing – especially in applications where traditional panels are impractical. One of the key benefits of printed solar panels is their flexibility. Using printed solar panels, designers have near total freedom to incorporate solar panels on flat and curved surfaces without compromising their vision.
Implications and opportunities
The potential for printed, flexible solar panels in personal electronic devices and other innovative applications is huge. Small printed solar panels could be incorporated into wearable devices like noise-canceling headphones, providing a continuous supply of sustainable power – meaning the wearer never needs to plug in again. The ability to integrate solar power into a broader array of products could revolutionize how we think about energy consumption and portability – freeing us from the charger and the plug.
Flexible solar systems | Production specifications
- Lower volume prints, large surface
- Silver, carbon, insulators
- Multiple print layers
- Plastic substrates
