CPEIA, NRC to Hold March 7 OPV Workshop

The CPEIA and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) are inviting people interested in organic photovoltaics to attend their joint full-day workshop in Toronto on March 7.
 
The event is hosted and sponsored by CSA Group and will take place at its Toronto facilities at 178 Rexdale Blvd. Canada’s top industrial companies and academic research teams will present and discuss their development and commercialization efforts. The workshop will explore the state of this industry and its core technologies, and the level of technical capability and commercial activity in Canada.
 
The keynote will feature Dr. Nicolas Blouin, head of photovoltaic chemistry at Merck KGaA of Germany. He will discuss Merck’s efforts to accelerate commercialization of OPV products by focusing on the formulation of active materials for industrial coating and mass-production of OPV modules.
 
The traditional solar cell is being complimented by a new generation of low-cost organic photovoltaics (OPV). These flexible solar cells based on thin films can turn a building’s entire exterior into a power generator. Applications also include automotive, point-of-sale and advertising, apparel, consumer electronics and off-grid. New high sensitivity OPVs can harvest ambient light for low-power applications such as self-powered sensors and self-powered antennas.