A printable, flexible, organic solar cell | Hannah Bürckstümmer 

Been saying these same things for at least 15 years as well as taking a systems approach to our architecture, heat, water, cooling...basic needs. Flexible solar has been around since Jimmy Carter who didn't support it back then. It seems we always have to be in crisis mode before things can change. Glad to see this presentation, but wish there were more details on production costs and output efficiency...so people could get it. Thank you Hannah, your passion is shared by an old engineer.

It lacks a lot of informations. She could have condensed it into one paragraph. It would be awesome to have details on how it works, about the amount of energy it can bring to buildings, about the maintenance, the environnemental and economic aspects, the way the cells are produced... Anyway.

How much does it cost and how efficient it is and how easy is it to produce? The only questions that matter.

3:33 Skip introduction

Yes! I have dreamed of this technology and will hopefully be able to integrate it into my building designs in the near future!!!

Even if the current produced is less it is still a more efficient power source. Through ease of production and weight alone will make these cells more efficient and cost-effective. I would really like to learn more. Yes, the presentation was superb.

What is the efficiency of the ink? How much power does a square metre produce in direct sunlight? Given the thin layer, how much energy is absorbed at uneven angles? Can I coat the arms of a windmill with this to produce a hybrid unit? I feel the clumsy shoe analogy could have been replaced with some answers to these important questions.

big respect for not switching out the boot bit 7:18

Great idea and nice presentation. Thanks TED!

It's fascinating stuff and all, like many other TED talks inspirational, but I think solar cell companies have to shift the tone from an environmental standpoint - which is of course important but people are kinda tired of hearing -, to a more economical one. Because that's the thing building owners and construction companies will be convinced by and will invest on. It's a sad reality, but it is what it is. And I think the entire solar cell industry is mature enough and has been around for long enough to just put it out there. Put simply: how much investment we're talking about for a standard size building, how much more production has to scale to bring prices of those processes down, what sort of savings will those buildings have on a daily basis, what's the ROI, how much extra in construction costs we're talking about, what are the numbers for examples given, what's the maintenance cost, etc etc. And I know there are trappings in solar power production. It simply cannot generate as much power as more traditional technologies, but if it gets to a point where it makes sense to invest, then it should be enough for lots of people to adopt it. But it has to be presented in hard numbers. You need to get hard realistic studies of effects out there. Yes, solar is less poluting and all, but by how much? How poluting are the processes of creating said cells? How it's expected to scale with mass production? What are the advantages of having buildings producing solar power (like in an outtage, building will retain the ability to produce some power). What about batteries? And then stuff like, how much less CO2 is being put out by building a city full of buildings with solar panels? What jobs will it generate? What systems people are using to connect to the grid? Even if the answers are not totally great or favorable, people need to know. I think lots of people wouldn't mind a less efficient paradigm, and/or something that costs a bit more, given the benefits.

Very interesting. Looking forward to see people incorporate this technology in their designs for buildings and various items.

Can we use it in mobile phones? Install a thin layer of OPV under the display so the battery could be charged when exposing display to the Sun?

The speaker failed to touch on the two main ingredients for a successful wide adoption of this technology; cost and efficiency. Lots of people are not willing to do massive investments that take a seriously long time to justify itself. And even more people are unable to do so. Solar panels still have a fairly low efficiency and require large and expensive installations to cover the power need of a normal home.

If the next-gen batteries do what they are saying they will be a major game changer and they talking a huge leap over the current batteries.

Dude from the future here. The edging is real, we still create reaource intensive solar panels as cutting edge technology which contributes heavily to pollution.

I don't remember how many times I've heard the promise of printable or even paintable solar cells. I hope they become a reality but a business plan speaks louder than a nice tech demo.

The reason It is Not used is it put out 10% (in watts) of what silcon based panels and cost just as much. But a good idea that needs work. FYI

That is amazing! Solar can be everywhere without people even knowing! She's so pretty and smart I think I'm in love haha

For "organic photovoltaic" , see "next way to have the knobheads over with something that cost 20x more than it needs to be ."

Imagine getting a tattoo with that ink.

Very nice presentation

Does any one else hear Siri when Hannah speaks?

Printable cells and printable magnets could do great things together.

Now if you took that ink and you made the solar cell and then you made a supercapacitor out of the same ink using thin aluminum and the ink itself, you could probably produce a panel that's flexible and does not need a battery and can run at a low milliamp for quite some time.

I'd like to see when they came up with their ink, because a few years ago someone else came up with the same ink and actually discovered it and it's been making supercapacitors out of it.

I'm confused no less than 8 years ago I watched a video of this technology...... what's new other than the fact your still not doing it....

It feels like this is just an advertisement of the solar panel without any description.

*Wow. For the first time in awhile, I find myself currently reading several physical books at once, and the main one is "Design Professional's Guide to Zero Net Energy Buildings" by Charles Eley, rather relevant to this talk.* *Also, I am kind of drunk. Typing is hard right now. (shrug)*

Long overdue. Great and inspirational work by the solar energy researchers.

It's a good idea for architectural design for sure. Though 8 years... means the cost of it is pretty damn expensive. Nice one!

Very interested in this topic. It will be more efficient to extract the energy directly from the sun but there is the problem of the rotation of the earth.

excellet info keep it going

Amazing robot!

Amazing... Thanks Ted Talks

I have been waiting for this video! :)

What's the efficiency? Presumably it's less than 20% which silicon cells provide, though these may look prettier. Very efficient solar cells use multiple layers to harvest different wavelengths. The cost per watt could make these cells useful.

I'm thinking you could print this on some massive plastic sheet, and you could just roll it out on the ground, and back up into a compact shape

I opened this video in a tab, began listening to it prior to opening the tab. I was compelled to open the tab to verify I was no listening to a text to voice video. There is a lot of issues with material degradation to any laminate material, delamination, environmental ingress and mechanical damages etc. Better to genetically engineer a bio accumulator; skin a tree with organic technology from the DNA level, build into the tree a storage cell akin to electric eels and fish, then harvest the accumulated energy. Plant your solar generators where-ever there is soil and water and be confident that it will always face towards the best sun and will perform continual maintenance and repair to itself.

It’s nice to meet the lady that does the Sally computer type to Voice.

I wonder how efficient it is today compared to current tech. It's less that's a given but how much? Tech is great though, can do stunning and sustainable architecture.

10 years ago I remember a guy spearheading solar ink and he bought an old newspaper printing press to produce flexible panels in high volumes. It looked so promising but dissapeared. He shoe analogy was terrible because we all know her little designer shoe is not comfortable and it costs a ton more with no practical use besides "it matches my dress"

Notice how all the stock blunders appear on TED Talks lol..Remember Theranos

Gonna have to rewatch because I was trying to pronounce her last name the whole time lol

How effective is this technology? How many percent of the suns energy can it use? Most current photovoltaics cannot make use of more than 20 percent I think - is this better? If solar becomes more widely used, we definitely need to increase percentage of the suns energy that can be used! The technology does sound pretty versatile overall and should indeed open up new uses

she says normal solar panels make aesthetics a challange, but i think the houses at 3:14 look much better with the panles, less boring, like a designe.

sounds great...BUT now it is 2019 and in 2015 it was commercially put to use... why isnt it still not mass produced..... ooh let me guess.......indeed .... the commerce.... the big bucks greed comes first.....

So 5 years later, where are they?

What does the free market say about solar?

So what's the product/technology called? Can't really go look for it if I don't know what vendors would be calling the stuff. I could see myself put sun to hot water things on the roof, and the foil things on the windows, but not without knowing what it's called.

Hi, I am interested in this technology, and I want to setup 1000 sq metres of these solar ink panel so please give me some information regarding imports of these panels in large quantity..

Ubiquity of solar, fully distributed power, is the key goodness for society over time. Centralized power is never good, even when it's electricity or tyranny.

I wonder what the life span is for this technology

Great talk

Organic Photovoltaics are a cool concept but are not a new technology and are not commercially feasible at this point. According to the DOE: "The low efficiencies of OPV cells are related to their small exciton diffusion lengths and low carrier mobilities. These two characteristics ultimately result in the use of thin active layers that affect overall device performance. Furthermore, the operational lifetime of OPV modules remains significantly lower than for inorganic devices." Silicon based solutions are still our best option, as the presenter admits at the end.

Leather is a sustainable resource. Boots have there place to protect the foot. Therefore your opening point is mute.

Listening to her speak, all it comes to mind is: "ve iz zi mikrofilm?" #germantalk

If we made it at home where we have to join the positive and negative terminal .Plss tell

I hope those are more efficient than solar panels made by sunpower.

Buenas como están disculpe, los vídeos en ingles será que pueden estar subtitulador por favor gracias

she puts her shoe bacc on

She seemed quite robotic. Great idea though. At MIT I saw a presentation where they could make solar cells with a 3-d printer. Maybe this is the future. Imagine designing your own solar cells.

Is TED becoming a product selling platform?

let s do this now

The equasion is, how much energy do you need (X) to produce energy (Y). Right now X is aways bigger thant Y.

She reminds me a lot like Shuri from Black Panther. Something about her.

Elon Musk: **breathing intensifies**

Is there a direct link to their research?

About comparison with the credit at the begining... well.. greater part of the world is actually doing just that in their personal economics :P

EVERYONE LET'S WEAR UNPAIRED SHOES!!! Wait...

These concepts are nice, and they would actually work, but we are facing a major problem...our obsolete monetary system is not making it possible to widely spread these technologies. You can see this easily on the reality that corporations need to make profits from people and as such, there is no money for everyone as there are no jobs for everyone to cumulate income. We need world wide change of socioeconomic system from market driven capitalism to science driven natural law resource based economy.

That's amazing

Cara Delevingne of the solar cells

Discover how to do it with Avasva.

Does it scale?

guys share something!!

Nice pres using different shoes!

Insane work, thats a right step into the future.

태양광판 모양이 애버랜드의 마크 모양하고 비슷한듯

Shut up and take my money!

Nobody and I mean nobody talks about the construction processes, including materials used to create that building, those materials in constructing solar cells in solar panels or the type of metal used to create a wind turbine, until we have that conversation all of this talk is meaningless and nothing will change.

- The introduction lingers a bit, I know the enviroment is an issue, don't depress me now. - The Prius Effect suggests that aesthetics is a minor problem. People like evident bulky solar panels because it signals that they care for the enviroment. - You say cost effective? My family just cannot afford to install solar panels. I computed the return of investment and it is in the decades. In fact, an hybrid solar and wind power solution for the house is better, we just don't have the space for the wind turbine. Waiting for cheaper technology makes more economic sense at the moment. - Would this be cheaper? I don't know. Perhaps where you are. As I said, it makes sense to wait. At least my city uses geothermal energy, but a the country in general uses fossil fuels as main energy source. You can try selling me the idea that we can change the wolrd starting from our homes... but no, I do not have the resources to produce cheap solar panels in my house. And politics? Teach me to dismantle the corporations behind fossil fuels and corruption, and hopefully without creating a militia. That's a dislike from me. Fight me.

And now put it in my phone

Material efficiency is not equivalent to energy efficiency.

What part of WestWorld is this?

Cool idea, but one hack of a sales pitch

I believe the majority of this and all ted talk audiences know enough about man’s devastating effect on our earth and it’s atmosphere in the last 100 yrs compared to anytime in earth’s natural history. We just need to apply the solutions NOW.

3:40 to 8:00 skip preachiness

Mine faveroit topic

Points at a leather shoe...REALLY sustainable ! XD Doesn't even tell you that most perovskites are using lead and that "inks" are actually deadly solvents... Whatever...

How efficient is it?

If the world doesn't collapse till I am dead, I am ok and I dont care about the larger time span than my life... I will let the future generation think about the problems when they appear for them, not my problem..

OPV's have been around for a while. the efficiency of OPV is very small (20%. another issue is photochemical decomposition. you put any polymer under the sun, and it will decompose over time, much faster than existing solar cells. it may have its place for aesthetic architecture or neat consumer goods, but it's a tough sell for actual power generation. if you want the building to be off grid, you need silicon.

Yeaeaeeaeaeaahhhh Daaaaaaaarmstadt!!!! Whoop Whoop!!!!

This amazing invention may be a nice improvement in environment, but the true solution is to change american consumist lifestyle, that spreads through he world.

Why they just introduce.. but not implement

Why do companies never pick people who actually can speak propper english on a english based talk show...

Arnold's sister?

Looks AMAZING! And if i understood correctly its carbon-based! I want to cover my whole house with it!

Very cool! But she makes me think of the future of AI robot technology...

Of course we don't use these solutions to sustain the planet. It's simply not quite as profitable as simply taking more than our planet can regenerate. Of course governments won't do much, they are much too corrupt and large corporations have a lot of influence. We're slowly working towards it, but we could've been much further along that goal if these large corporations and governments actually pushed for these things. The way modern society is constructed heavily favors those who are willing to step on everyone and everything.